Mayday mayday mayday!!

Car been running fine during Lake District tour. Coming home south on M6 I hear a bag of marbles from the front and trace it to the water pump (new one only fitted 2 yrs ago!). There is a wet and lot of play in the central sprocket connecting the fan and running the pulleys, bands etc. wobblin' all over the place!

AA been called but it is likely to be a long wait (quoted 4 hrs before arrival)

My question is what is the best remedial action to get me home? can the fan etc be removed so just the basic tasks can be carried out by the water pump to get me home?

sorry james i dont know but i've copied your post into general so hopefully someone who knows will pick on one or the other post.. ... - .- -.




Y. O. L. O.
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Don't know much about the FF water pump but a fair bit about a Defenders.

With that much play in it and "marbles" I'd be wary of the pump having disintegrated internally. If it were my vehicle I wouldn't want to run it until I'd opened up the pipework and had a nose around. This of course means having a set of tools around and some method of refilling things up.

Given the temperature at the moment you might be able to get away without running with a waterpump but again I probably wouldn't do it on my vehicle. You're likely to get hotspots on the engine block as the water is not being pumped around. If you are able to confirm the inside of the coolant system is clear of obstacles then driving gently (in terms of sudden accelerations etc) keeping a close eye on the temperature gauge might be OK depending on distance. What you don't want to do ideally is suddenly load the belt running the pump and risk more damage.

[edit]Most of the cooling comes from water flow rather than the fan so running without a fan will be OK provided you keep monitoring the temperature (and if it starts to rise pull over and LEAVE the engine running). However this does depend on the pump being able to pump water around the system.[/edit]

Since you're at some services I would not risk any further damage and wait for the AA. If you were stranded somewhere else then there may be different options.

It it's wobbling then the bearing's knackered. Running it like that is likely to cost you the engine. Wait for the big yellow taxi

Wait for the AA James

Likely you won't make it home if its that badly damaged sir... If it does fail completely you will more than likely kill your motor sir...

£385 lighter and I'm awaiting the big yellow cab! Am in good company tho' ........ Alongside a merc CL and Audi a5.

Thanks for your advice and help guys!

Happy new year!

Safe journey home James

Cheers Craig.

At least the jams are gone by now!

Could be worse James... It could be 24hrs later... No fun toasting in the new year with a can of red bull in an AA truck

How did this end James

After AA roadside said they couldn't do anything, got recovered by the AA but had to upgrade from roadside assist to recovery to home (£385). unfortunately their ops room were a bit "erratic" (according to the AA guy who eventually picked us up) and only got us down to Birmingham where another driver was waiting to take us on to Bristol. Got home at 1am (broke down at 3.30pm). fair enough i guess. although there were a number of AA trucks who left the services we were at empty and were going south (I know 'cos I asked every one of them!)

Still all good and my old girl is awaiting a new pump. gotta say i am blessed as this is the first time in 5 years of FFRR ownership anything major has gone wrong on a long trip.

And I got 168 miles on one tank of LPG (£44) so not all bad!!

Water pump on the Bmw v8 is not uncommon. It's around an hour to change. You might want to put on a new belt at the same time,
That's for the engine, -not your post Xmas waistline...