Afternoon all,



Long story short, fan belt shredded itself on the motorway yesterday. The smell of burnt electrics and the battery light is unfortunately not uncommon so I didn't react as quickly as I would have liked in hindsight. Pulled into a services 5-10 mins later and there is coolant everywhere other than the expansion tank, engine bay is soaked and/or steaming & puddles on the wings where its come out under the bonnet etc. I didn't notice what the temp gauge was doing & we were recovered home on the yellow ambulance.

On a brief inspection this morning I cant see where the coolant has come from, no hoses obviously split or popped off, tank is intact. The tensioner is v stiff/seized and there are bits of belt stuck in the bearings of the alternator pulley. AC was running full pelt at the time and heater blower was off, AC pump looks fine however.

Also weirdly the brake fluid reservoir lid was loose?

The universe has decided this is Karma, the poor girl has sat unloved since the autumn, I checked the oils & levels in the morning and nothing was amiss, I scraped her through an MOT the same day and we headed off for a weekend only to get 2 hours down the road. So its time for a good old overhaul of the front end as long as anything hasn't cooked itself.

So how bad can it be, likelihood of head gasket damage, warping etc? How can I safely check for any damage? And what else to check & replace whilst I'm at it?

Cheers,

Change the tensioner and belt, and test drive it upto temp. Hopefully doesn’t over pressure the cooling system. Likelihood is head warped if driven for long without coolant though.

You will very quickly know if the water pump seals have failed as it will just pour out the pump as you are refilling it. This is another common failure if the system over pressurizes when overheating. What should happen and why you wont have found an obvious source for all the coolant everywhere is the expansion bottle cap has a pressure relief valve in it and is designed to fail if the pressure is reached. So this is most likely the source of coolant everywhere and just requires a new reservoir cap.

I wouldnt even spend the money on a new tensioner unless its solid.
New belt and spray lube the tensioner to move free(ish) unless it really is FUBAR, fill it with water and run it up.

And keep your fingers crossed

J

Thanks guys, apologies for my delayed thanks.

Been finally getting into a fix over last few days and had the usual mission creep, whole coolant system currently in bits, but in flushing it and having a good look about I've not found any disastrous leaks, so hope it was just the expansion tank lid and it will hold pressure.

Original cause of the belt going was the tensioner bearing completely shot, part of the race having melted. Just the pulley/bearing isn't available on its own so had to get a whole new tensioner which is quite annoying. On top the idler pulley had also absolutely blitzed its carrier (see pic) so that's replaced too. Whole build quality of all these parts is pretty crap Chinesium cast Alu (even though Allmakes branded etc) with no machined faces for the bearings so will be interesting to see how long this one will last before it starts to do the same!

Hopefully get it back together, flushed and running tomorrow and all is well.