Guess what i just did!

Just driving home from work, about 20 miles. I knew that the alternator belt looked a bit iffy the other day, but i thought i'll check it on saturday.

anyway 18 miles from home the battery light came on, and I thought crap it's thrown the belt, oh well i'll drive home quick on the battery and fix it there.

16 miles later i noticed the water temp is eading off the scale. i thought must be the belt knocke the cable off.

yes that right I have a cross flow and never ocurred to me that when losing the alternator i also lost the water pump!

slowed for a roundabout engine stalled.. plume of steam and smoke


crap it. needless to say lots of pointing and asking if i'm OK.

got to say though, my missus is a demon at towing.


NOW whats the chances of serious damage? the egine has cooled and turns over by hand fairly easy as before?

Opinions!


Morale: NEVER put a job off

X-flows are quite durable - apart from one weakness. The head is prone to warping if it runs dry. Also it may crack between cylinder 2 & 3, although that's usually caused by bad bolt-undoing technique.

Change oil, fill up the water, run it on idle for an hour to get it really hot and dry out the exhaust. Switch off and check the oil for contamination and the water for oil. It'll probably still need a second oil change after that.

If the alt light comes on, switch the heater to full heat.

Neil I would just fill with fresh water and try it , its possible it will be ok i once boiled a car up to the point of it stalling , left it 20 min filled up with water and drove it for another 2 years with no trouble.
If the head is damaged I have a spare crossflow head if you need one.
Paul.

On the plus side though, a new head means a possible upgrade......
Otherwise, fill it with water and see if it leaks. And new oil wouldn't go amiss either.

quote:

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Originally posted by Mr Whippy
...
If the alt light comes on, switch the heater to full heat.

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As above - it's either OK or it's porked.

Re-fill with water and run it for a while - if it runs OK without odd stuff coming out of the exhaust, the coolant stays clean and the oil doesn't turn to cream then it'll probably be fine. If so, drain the coolant and oil and replace with fresh stuff. Oh - and keep an eye on it for a while, with regular checks on the oil and water (and temp gauge).

If not - well at least you'll know that you have a repair job to do.

Either way - you'll know for sure!

time for a bike engine?

see the car's all ok so great!

Thought I'd regail with when my mate's sierra v6 4x4 estate, while being driven "enthusiastically" threw a fan blade through the radiator (seemingly after a stone smashed the blade off, it was off road! )

We were in the middle of nowhere (actually the swan inn at forton in shropshire iirc) and it was gone one in the morning.............

more the amusing because we knew nothing about the holed rad.

Temp gauge never moved at all, then it started pinking about 6 miles later, which was odd. we kept going wondering what was wrong, then the temp gauge started to drop and the pinking got worse, very odd, we thought!!!

Temp gauge went all the way to fully cold, then about another 5 miles later started to rise again and things started to smell of burning, and the pinking got really bad, that's about when the penny dropped that the gauge was low cos there was no water near the sender!!!

made it into Newport and it seized solid just as we pulled into the shell garage there (which was obviously closed)

Anyway, cue a long night and no sleep. Attempts to restart were fruitless as it was so seized the starter wouldn't turn it over.

next morning it did though, and we picked up a tatty rad from the local scrappy after cadging a lift over with some harper adams students (It was my former college as well!!! )

After changing it using a scredriver and pliers, we filled it with water, started it up, and thrashed it mercilessly for another 50,000 miles of trouble free motoring........................

good ol' cologne v6's!!!!

try that with a bike engine

cble ties joined together around crank and water pump pulleyswould have gotten you home.