FJ62 Water Pump Failure (Was: FJ62 Bad crank pulley / harmonic balancer?) (1 Viewer)

[lechnito]

EDIT: Future readers - The root cause turned out to be the water pump!

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While driving home today, I came to stop in front of my house, heard a loud squeal coming from my engine compartment, and the truck stalled to a shut.

Got her started back up without an issue, but I noticed there's now an intermittent noise that seems to be related to either the crank pulley or one of the other accessories. The 3 belts look to be in good shape, there's no oil dripping from new places, and no codes being returned by the ECU. The noise could still be heard after I shut off the AC so the compressor is probably okay.

I got her into my garage and it looks to me like the crank pulley is wobbling more than it was before. Apologies for the poor quality video, but you can hear the irregular noise around the 10 second mark.



What do you think, mud? Could a self-destructing harmonic balancer result in a stall? Any chance this is something worse like say a spun main bearing or something related to the crank shaft?

 

[LAMBCRUSHER]

Run it till it don’t. Look for a used runner or builder or n the mean time. Turn up radio. Post back in 150k

 

[LAMBCRUSHER]

Check harness at coolant temp sensor and adjust valves.

 

[LAMBCRUSHER]

Sorry for cryptic sarcasm but it’s a 3fe... you’d know if it were broke.

 

[micruz60]

Make sure the big nut that holds the balancer on is snug- 144+ ft.lbs torqued.

Dale manuf. / Damper doctor does HB rebuilds, google it, they are in your area.

 

[lechnito]

Here are some better quality videos I took this morning after letting the rig sit overnight:





@LAMBCRUSHER - Valve adjustment was done about 7k ago and it still sounds pretty good. Temp sensor and harness visually look okay, but didn't perform the FSM diagnostics on it. Not sure how they could contribute to the noise I'm hearing.

@micruz60 - The big nut seems snug. I put my ludicrously oversized crescent wrench on the nut and the whole crank pulley turned in both directions. Is that normal?

 

[Spike Strip]

Hard to tell from the vid (on my phone) but your balancer may be failing. You need to check this carefully and soon cuz if it lets go at speed, you can badly damage the crank and that ain't cheap.

 

[Gretsch]

Make sure the big nut that holds the balancer on is snug- 144+ ft.lbs torqued.

3FE I think the torque values are more than that for that nut. 253 Ft.lbs if memory serves. That said I would be surprised if that was the issue.

Just an idea here.....any chance the woodruff key has sheared somehow and the pulley is spinning somewhat free on the crank. Videos seem to show it moving together with the crank rotation so not sure that's it. You would have to remove the crank pulley to see if that's the case but fellow mudders have experienced such a thing. If anything was wrong with the pulley setup, I would lean towards it being more just the rubber in the balancer being worn out allowing the pulley to wobble as @Spike Strip alludes to. Something more to do with the balancer itself rather than the bolt torque or woodruff key. However when I look at the videos, I don't really see much of a wobble to the pulley. Seems like something else making the noise to me. Sure its not the water pump pulley wobbling allowing the fan blades to hit the fan shroud periodically. The noise sounds real tinney to me if I have the trouble noise correct.

Edit: Listening again it almost sounds like something rolling around inside pulley somewhere. Maybe part of one of the rivets broke free and is rolling around between the crank cover and the edge of the pulley somehow? Maybe it wedged itself in such a way that it caused a noise and slowed down the rotation of the motor enough to shut it off.

 

[John McVicker]

Wow! Just looked up Dale manufacturing. Put it in my ‘Bookmarks’. Good info to know. Thanks.

 

[John McVicker]

Maybe take all the belts off, run the engine for a short time and listen for the noise. Put one belt back on, start it and listen etc. etc.

 

[lechnito]

I took another look for anything out of the ordinary and I found this shiny bit of metal loosely hanging out on the engine-side of the pulley that the fan clutch is connected to:

Is that the pulley that drives the water pump? If so, I think the water pump can be raised to the top of the list of potential culprits!

@Robert Franzke - The noise definitely has tinney / scraping quality. Sounds like what you would expect if a ball bearing disintegrated.

I agree that the crank pulley doesn't appear to wobble but I'm seeing wobble in the fan from the first video. I don't see any obvious damage to the fan shroud.

@John McVicker - That idea crossed my mind. Any worries about running the engine without the water pump and alternator though?

 

[Gretsch]

Is that the pulley that drives the water pump?

That should be the pulley that drives the water pump. Any leaking from the weep hole on the water pump itself?

 

[John McVicker]

W/o the water pump just run it for 30-40 seconds, your videos were about that long so it will be enough time. Won’t hurt your battery either.

 

[lechnito]

@Robert Franzke - Negative. No weeping of any kind from the water pump itself.

@John McVicker - Roger that. Going to start methodically removing belts.

 

[Spike Strip]

Not sure, but in the first video - it's only briefly on the water pump - but is that pulley wobbling ? How old is the WP?

 

[Gretsch]

If you suspect the water pump, you might be able to just get away with removing the belt that drives the WP and turn it by hand with the engine off to see if you can feel roughness to the WP bearing. You could possibly remove the fan clutch/fan/pulley to get in and see the WP shaft area to see if you can see anything obvious with the shaft. Try and get it to wobble by hand by and see if there is any play in the shaft itself. Once you take the pulley and stuff off you may be able to see quickly where the issue is.

 

[cruisermatt]

The stalling is a red herring, (you probably have something like a bad ground or bad ignition connection that caused that).
Noise sounds like water pump to me. As the others said pull the belts off and run it.

 

[lechnito]

Okay, I've removed the power steering and alternator belts, started her up, and she sounds great. I think I can rule out any shenanigans with the harmonic balancer, woodruff key, or anything in the crank case.

I tried manually spinning the water pump pulley and detected no unusual noises or behaviors. No pulley wobble was obvious but it's hard to get enough leverage on it.

The next step is to start the process of digging into the water pump pulley. My guess is that the internal mechanism of the pump is good but something connected to the shaft self destructed. Anyone know the p/n for the water pump?

@Spike Strip - Water pump vintage is unknown. No records of it having been changed from the PO so I suspect it's original and has 217k miles.

@cruisermatt - Agreed. The stall is a red herring.

 

[micruz60]

Good job narrowing the diagnosis to the WP, rite of passage remove and replace, 'while you're there' also suspect hoses.

 

[LAMBCRUSHER]

Check fan clutch too. Won’t leave metal behind the pulley, but could make a similar noise.