December 5th 2016

When your correspondent last wrote, my Freestyle stranded me on the way home from the Pittsburgh

Frownie

airport. Something in the cooling system failed (I was guessing the thermostat, which turned out to be half true!) and when I tried to slowly return home, stopping to let the engine cool, my wife guilted me in calling a tow truck and having her meet me for breakfast. I came to a stop at King's, a chain started by Hartley King, an offshoot of his fuel distribution business. Kings always played second-fiddle to Pittsburgh's dominant family chain "Eat 'n Park", despite having both better breakfast and desert menus. For years, as a counter to Eat 'n Park's "Smiley" cookie, King's had the Frownie -- a stroke of marketing brilliance to counter the Smiley -- a brownie with a no-so-menacing frown. But it went deeper than the frown: the earth-tone brownie matched the Kings décor to the tee, the fudgy bites were more substantial than the nearly flavorless Smiley cookies, like the food at Kings versus E'n'P. Kings has since been purchased by some outfit on the west coast and is losing it's quirkiness, the menu isn't on the placemat anymore, the Frownie retired to mascot Florida and decidedly 70's faux wood Formica décor replaced by cleaner and brighter tiles and paint.

I didn't have the chance to look into the problem that day and some home things kept me from tearing into the engine for about a week. When I did get to seeing what was happening, I had the following suspects, in my order of probability:

Blockage in radiator
This would keep the coolant from flowing, since I was not getting heat in the cabin, this would sort of make sense, but I would have expected some coolant flow from the engine to provide some heat.
Thermostat valve failure
I replaced this already, but it could have been the problem, maybe a discount part failed?
Water pump
Least likely, since it was just replaced.

I'm thinking #1 as the problem, since I replaced the Thermostat and water Pump. But, the nature of the symptoms (over heating engine, no output from heater) lent itself to being a failed water pump, despite it being replaced just a few months back. I started by removing the various pipes from the cooling manifold (using a basin to catch the fluid) and to my surprise, saw some fresh oil dripping on the starter, along with a whiff of the "oil and coolant" smell. Something interesting is afoot, just not sure what.

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Note oil drip on starter...

Off came the water pump. Flipping it over, I see oil leaking from the weep hole of the pump.

This was odd, because water pumps shouldn't contain any oil. Then, on close inspection of the part, the nature of the problem became more obvious, looking closely where the pump interfaced with the cam shaft:

Then, it can back to me... When I was pulling out of the airport, I heard a squeaking/grinding noise, I that was this part of the pump breaking and being reduced back to the metal powder from which it was formed, in the process tearing the seal around the camshaft, permitting the oil into the pump shaft. Here's what the seal looks like in the engine:

At this point, I needed to replace the water pump and seal. But the thermostat was OK, right? No it wasn't, so that will need to be replaced as well. What makes this more frustrating is my smugness over having the luxury of time to do the research and wait for delivery. At least I have practice!

This post first appeared on 500 Dollar Car, please read the originial post: here