Horrible rattle under the hood. Diagnosis? NOT water pump.

[disallow]

UPDATE: after 100 miles the part I got off ebay failed... Just got a replacement covered under warranty... 40 miles and it's still okay.

Update #2: After another 1200 miles the SECOND part I got off ebay failed. Third is on the way

Anyone have any experience with this part failing? Any possible obscure causes that I'm overlooking? Looks to me like the seals just failed on the first replacement part. Haven't removed the second one but I'm sure it's the same case.

I'd be leaning to inferior quality. What's the cost of an OEM part vs what you got from eBay?

As a secondary reason, I'd probably check belt alignment and tension. Did you replace your belt during this exercise? If so, is it for sure the correct length?

t

[oreogaborio]

Yeah I replaced the belt to be safe while I was at it & it's definitely the right one.

I'm also leaning towards poor bearing/seal quality, but I wanna make sure I'm not missing anything before I ream out the supplier.

[oreogaborio]

Another one bites the dust.... This time the bearing disintegrated w/o warning, spit the fan into the radiator and threw the serpentine belt. Luckily no damage to the radiator and I was able to limp it home running on just the battery.

This is really starting to piss me off. Enough with this Chinese part crap. I called a dealership & they'll have a new one for me tomorrow morning. 60 something bucks.


I'm beginning to wonder if the fan clutch is out of balance or something but an OEM fan clutch is 180 bucks. The one I've got in there works just fine, although there is a TEEEEEENY bit of play once it's free spinning.

[disallow]

could it be a tolerance issue on the clutch mounting?

Aftermarket clutch? I've had nothing but problems with those, so bad I took it off and put my old clutch back on even though I think its shot.

[oreogaborio]

Yeah, aftermarket clutch... But it's been in there since September.

I have noticed a little play once the clutch frees up and goes into free spin operation, though....

[oreogaborio]

Positive update: OEM bearing and clutch holding up fine for about a year now.

Lesson learned: Don't use an aftermarket clutch or fan bearing assembly.

[dawgn86]

I replaced my serpentine belt tensioner and idler pulley a few weeks back. When I backed the bolt out with a ratcheting wrench, it went into the fan and I couldnt reverse it so I had to take the fan off. Long story short, I had to remove that bracket ( 4 bolts ) and put my serpentine belt tensioner bolt in from the back side to straighten up the threads.

As in previous post, if your mechanic is seeing sparks, its not the water pump as it is inside the timing chain cover.

[oreogaborio]

Ah yeah, I'm not sure if you can rotate the fan in a way that lets you get that bolt out or not... don't think you can. Been a while since I tried it that way.