how I am sure if the problem is the water pump?

Question

My car overheated and I noticed it was dumping brown residue (perhaps from radiator) I stopped and filled up with water and immediately started dumping all the water.

Answer 1

Yeah you need to flush the system.. But you haven't given enough info to determine if it has a bad water pump. When the engine is hot an most of the coolant has leaked or boiled out and you add water or antifreeze to the radiator the coolant hits the over heated engine and boils right back out the radiator cap. It may even look like a volcano erupting. The only way to tell is to continue to put water in, with the engine running, as soon as the engine cools enough the water will stop erupting out. With the engine cooled down you can do so checks. Look down into the radiator, assuming it is not full to the top, you should see the water moving through. If the water continues to erupt no matter how long you attempt to cool it, it may be that the thermostat is stuck closed or nearly closed. Another cause could be that you have a crack in your engine or head gasket that allows engine compression to leak into the coolant chambers forcing the coolant out. The water pump usually either leaks around the shaft, wobbles, or loses it's drive belt neither of which stops the pump from being functional. Losing the belt stops it from pumping but the pump is not broke, the belt is. Sometimes the belt can loosen and cause the pump to turn slow and inefficiently and cause over heating.

Check the belt make sure it is tight.. (shut off the engine first) You can try and move the pulley on the front of the pump from side to side to see if the seal and bearing are going out. Don't rotate it but front to back like you would to your steering wheel if you were sitting in your drivers seat pulling and pushing it.. If the pulley wobbles then you need a new one. Very rarely a water pump will lock up, that would have been evident by the squealing of the drive belt just before it melted in two from the heat build up of it sliding across the nonmoving pulley. Another thing that can cause over heating is not checking your fluid levels regularly. If you have a small leak in your coolant system and it gets down to a certain level and then gets stressed by fast driving or a hot day, it will over heat and boil out more fluid and act as you described. If you didn't damage your engine by over heating it then you would just refill it and all would be well. After you have figured out the problem and fixed it, then you need to flush the cooling system and fill it with the proper mixture of water and anti-freeze. I suggest using distilled water or premixed anti-freeze because most water from the tap has a lot of non water ingredients that plug up your cooling system as they harden in the system.. Good luck..

Answer 2

Head gaskets are installed wrong all the time. But it could be a cracked block where the crack only opens up when warm. Just leave the thermostat out until you find the problem. One of the advantages of that is you'll be able to see the water circulating. Electric water pumps were one of the dumbest ideas ever and never should have been on engines. Get two temperature strips made for the purpose and put them on both radiator hoses. That will tell you if the radiator is doing it's job. And don't use money as an excuse to replace that aluminum piece of crap with a good copper radiator. It will cost you a lot more money if it's not doing it's job. Put an exhaust gas analyzer on the radiator. You don't always see bubbling right off when head gaskets leak.

Answer 3

The problem could be a bad or stuck thermostat. Let the engine cool first. then fill the radiator with water or coolant. when full start the engine and let it come up to temp. Stick your finger in the top of the radiator and see if the water starts getting warm or if you can notice movement of the water as the thermostat opens and closes. If all this is happening, then go to an auto parts place and buy a radiator flush kit. Install it and the cleaning chemicals and flush the radiator and block. This will help with the cooling. good luck.

Answer 4

well, with all that brown stuff, you need to get the cooling system flushed. if the water pump isnt working, it wont circulate. if its pushing the water back out, then it might be the thermostat.

Answer 5

no problem in the pump. your heat exchanger is dumped with scale. clean this, you find feel ok.