Rigginit

B18A1 in 93 CX Hatchback
Daily driven & Daily needed

I know this is Stupid to start off with but too late to go back and change it. Ive been doing a lot of work tryin to clean up the motorbay So many hoses have been coming off and on. To save a little money Ive been using only water as coolant simply due to the fact it was getting drained again nightly. Car has been in a heated garage so i thought it would be no problem temperature wise. Well ... Neighbor owned the garage before hand and still has some wood shop tools in there as well so he has access as well. He turned the heaters off. grrr. Well the next morning car had froze over with me thinking nothing of it. I went to start it and got harsh grinding from my water pump area and it ran like crap for about 5 mins before i shut it down. Hurray for the B18A1 Snow cone machine!
Well after doing some thorough thawing and coolant flushes. I thought it would be ok. I was wrong. It drove roughly for 45 mins and then temp started shooting up. Radiator fans weren't kicking on. Replaced the fan switch, problem solved, both fans operating correctly. Next seemed to get to operatng temp and no heat... thought maybe thermostat too. Upper Radiator hose hot as crap lower hose luke warm to colder if anything. Pulled thermostat out completely to check. Well car then drove what seemed good and normal except ... no heat still until after about 20 mins of normal operating temps. Tried bleeding the system and broke water outlet on accident. Replaced it with Dealership water outlet. Car drives normal for about 2 hours fine then begins to overheat pretty fast still.... putting more gas to while driving seems to drop the temp to normal pretty fast. Doesn't appear to be any coolant loss.
Next on my list, Im thinking water pump prolly gave up. Purchased GSR water pump and oil pump (plan to go LS-Vtec eventually...unless this block is cracked) and the GSR timing belt and plan to put them in this coming week on my night off. Im kinda running out of ideas so my main ? is does this sound like water pump failure? Im hoping so compared to cracked block which I refuse to believe but am kinda expecting. But wouldnt cracked block have at least some sort of coolant loss? oh btw Ill be checking head gasket while timing belt is off. What does this problem sound like? I could cover it on my own im sure after lots of time and new parts, but hopefully its a situation someone has had and can help me with. Thanks to those who help.
(I searched and 10 archived items for "Froze" came up, 1 of which was kinda like this but was more geared to water pump alone questions. Most were "My I-POD Froze!)


Modified by Rigginit at 1:02 AM 12/16/2006

sexyrex

t-stat maybe?

bart2546

Since you seemed to check everything else, I'd deffinitely lean towards the water pump, but don't leave out the coolant temperature sensor. It might be something you'd want to replace after it froze up anyway so I wouldn't think it would hurt, pretty easy plug and play device.

Rigginit

thanks for the help so far ok checked temp sensor. good there. Still waiting for next day off which is wednesday to do T-belt water pump and oil pump. any other thoughts towards this? Im really hoping it is the water pump. Hoping someone can help me figure this out with confidence instead of nickel and diming it to death till nothing left to check. Any knowledgable thoughts welcome

speedworks

if it froze up and you started the engine it could have bent the fins on the water pump.

Rigginit

Just for conclusion it was the water pump. coolant channel in the block and head gasket turned out good and no problems in the block. The fins were good on the old pump but it was free spinning and wasnt turning with the gear as one motion. I pulled it off and re-seated it and seemed to be a perfect water pump again. Of course I didnt put it back in either way though. Bought a new GSR water pump and used that instead ...Ill hold onto this one in case an emergency or if i ever feel brave and want to see if I repaired it right.
Ah Feel that vent heat babeh :D

GODSPEED33

glad u got it fixed bro