I have a 1998 Civic coupe with the 1.6 sohc engine (not the vtech). There is a strange noise comming from around the water pump, it sounds like a popping noise. Strange thing is that it only happens when the engine is hot and only at 1500 RPM, there is no noise at any other engine speed. The car has only done 20000 miles. Has anyone got any ideas what the problem is?

 

Try bleeding the cooling system.

 

it maybe the water pumo bearing bring it to honda under waranty

 

If you hear noises coming from your water pump than it means its broken and needs to be replaced. The bearings in your water pump must be broken so its probably rubbing together making that strange sound. You should hurry up and replace it becuase once it stops functioning then coolant will stop flowing too which will make your engine heat up more becuase now the coolant isn't flowing the heated coolant out into the radiator to cool it down. The extreme heat will in turn create even more damage to the engine such as warped cylinder head, but if your lucky(like me) then it'll be just a blown cylinder head gasket(which is also a pain to replace cause you'll have to take half the engine apart). The heat created in the motor will be so extreme that the thermostat meter in gauge panel will go past the red mark and almost through the roof. Anyhow this happend to me so hurry and replace the damn thing.


[Modified by Spartanic, 5:03 AM 3/30/2002]

 

Thanks for the sugestions. The noise doesnt seem to be a bearing noise, usually when a bearing fails there is noise all of the time, also the noise doesnt sound like a broken bearing. I'm an engineer so I took my car to work and attached some hi tech equipment to the engine and sampled the wave form of the noise, it look almost like cavitation although I have never heared of this happening on a car water pump. could be an air lock somewhere, I'll try draining the system first and see what happens.