redpathtribe

This story is appropriate for Easter, resurrection and second chances...

It all started about 7 months ago driving home one beautiful night, windows down, sunroof open with my lovely wife beside me. Timing belt light comes on less than a mile from home, no worries, was about due for retensioning anyway. Start to smell burning rubber, there is NO WAY that could be my car, start looking around to see who's poor car it is. Turn down our street, temperature gauge shoots into the red, oh boy, maybe it is me. Ease up into the driveway, shut the motor off and coolant comes pouring out the bottom of the car. I knew what happened now... Timing belt light, burnt rubber smell, overheat all spells disaster. Water pump must have frozen up and very likely the timing belt jumped, cam gears off, valves hitting pistons and bending... So I pushed it into the garage and was literally afraid to even look at it for a couple of months. I can't afford to go through the motor again.

I finally got up the courage to check it out, pulled the timing belt covers off, the motor was sitting almost right on 0 TDC... and the notches on the cam gears lined up!!! Rotated the motor around two times to make sure everything lined up (what is that noise!, sounds like the noise when you screw in a deck screw with a drill), went very slow and easy, all marks lined up where they were supposed to again! Said a prayer of thanks. Ordered a new water pump, timing belt and power steering rebuild kit from Roger at 928's rus (Thanks again for the fantastic service!).

A good friend offered his help, including his garage and lift! So, 2 weekends ago, had the car towed out there, got it up on the lift and started taking things apart. HUGE thanks to Dwayne and his water pump/timing belt replacement write up (Wally's and John Pirtle's too), would have been much more difficult to do without it! When I finally got the water pump off, the pulley was frozen solid and parts of the timing belt had melted itself solid onto the pulley (now I knew what that noise was when rotating the motor originally). Said another prayer of thanks. It was a mess too because the power steering pump had been leaking slewing power steering fluid all over the front of the motor. There also seemed to be rubber from the timing belt on things like the drivers distributor cap and radiator hoses, but don't know how it would have gotten on there.

Over 2 weekends spent a lot of time cleaning, installed a new Laso water pump with plastic impeller, new Gates timing belt, oiled the tensioner, rebuilt the power steering pump with kit from Roger (VERY easy to do), new Zerex G05 coolant and distilled water and tightened up a few loose bolts (all the oil pan bolts needed to be just snugged up). All done, fired it up and once everything warmed up and settled in (lifters were a bit noisy after sitting that long) it ran great! WooHoo!!! That was too close. I feel VERY fortunate as this could have really been a disaster and I should have shut the motor down as soon as the belt light came on, but especially after I smelled the burnt rubber!!! BTW, I'm trying to find the receipt, but new water pump (Laso with metal impeller) and Continental timing belt were installed about (I'm guessing here until I find the receipt) 40k miles ago.

Here's a few photos to see how close it was:
1st is the water pump after we pulled it off the motor
2nd is a (fuzzy) close up of the water pump pulley with timing belt melted on
3rd is the timing belt after it came off, photo doesn't do it justice
4th is the GT in the air on the lift, boy it's nice to have a friend with a lift!!!

IcemanG17

WOW you dodged a bullet on that one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ducman82

very close call! good work fixing that bad boy.

Jadz928

I'm glad everything worked out for you!

Would be curious about the receipt, in particular, if the WP was a rebuild one.

I'm in the process of another TB/WP after only 2 years because I wasn't particularly comfortable with the TB/WP used (rebuild WP, Conti belt).
Mine was only 6K miles ago. No failures, just uncomfortable... and better options in my price range had surfaced in the past 2 years.

Pull that bullet out of your teeth and frame it.

ROG100

Jim,
Laso does not rebuild water pumps they only make new ones.

I would be very interested to know the time scale on the WP as metal impeller units have not been around for a while now.
Dodged a large caliber bullet

Jadz928

I understand.
Then who was rebuilding your WP's before you offered the new Laso pump?
IIRC, the new Laso pump has only been available for a year and a half.
I did my WP 2 1/2 years ago.

BTW, the rebuilt pump looked really good when removed a couple weeks back.

Catfood

Correct me if Im wrong, but TB/WP are supposed to go 30K miles right?

Mrmerlin

thats one nice thing about the 928 timing belt,
if it was any shorter it would have totally melted and snapped,
since its long the rubber has a chance to cool off before it take another pass over the frozen pulley..
BTW that pump looks like it has been leaking for a while.
Glad you got a nice Easter gift!

Imo000

Wellcome to the club you lucky ba$tard! I had the same exact thing happen a year ago in June! Nice to feel lucky isn't it?

Here's one more reason to keep the factory warning system active.

Shane

I just did the TB/WP on Helmut because I heard the pump impellar chewing into the block. Pulled the pump and the impellar fell off. Only minor scoring on the block, pump was a Laso.

JWise

Just out of curiosity, what did it sound like and what led you to believe it was the pump? Nice save!

Shane

It sounded like a stuttering grinding noise, I'd heard it before at a dyno day when a locals '85 auto had the same thing happen.

ROG100

Jim,
Please do not start rumors - I will repeat Laso has never supplied rebuilds.

The company that builds the rebuilds here in the USA will rebuild a Porsche, a Laso or an aftermarket pump. They supply rebuilt pumps to Porsche. That is why I will not supply a rebuilt pump at all. That company has no affiliation with Laso.
Do not mix rebuilds with new pumps. The only suppliers of new pumps are Laso and MPG in Germany.
MPG supply the Porsche pumps but in such small quantities due to the $1000 price tag. They also fail.
I stopped selling rebuilt pumps a long time ago as did Mark at 928 International (correct me if I am wrong Mark) - the only company that I know selling rebuilt pumps is 928 MotorSports.

Failures of new Laso pumps about three years ago were at about 0.5%. Since they changed their design based on feedback from the 928 community - added additional safety factors and a plastic impeller – I have no knowledge of any failure. Not a bad track record. We have very little choice when it comes to water pumps - Laso at $285 or Porsche at $1000. I know what I use on my cars.

Mechanical pumps will fail, be it Porsche or Laso, but the numbers sold v the failures tell the real story.
I sell 100 Laso pumps for every Porsche one. I forget the last time I sold a Porsche pump. $1000 scares most buyers.

ROG100

Shane,
So how old was the pump that failed? Was it a new Laso or a rebuilt Laso?
Roger

Shane

Brand new in '02 before I bought the car in '03.