"...and quite effectively stopped the car.."
I'd have thought it would have "violently and catastrophically" stopped the car
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April 21-22, 2018
So the brakes gave me some trouble, and I put the car up on jack stands to fix it.. I figured this would be a good time to investigate my mysterious cooling issue, which has morphed into my mysterious timing chain issue..
It started when I had the AC system charged up.. works great! My little Volvo has cold AC! Not so fast... sure it has AC, but when you turn on the AC, the engine starts to overheat.. Something's wrong for sure.. Since I'm dealing with mostly new parts (radiator/electric fan/heater core/etc), I had a bit of a hard time diagnosing this one.. What I eventually learned is the coolant is not circulating as it should... It works, it runs, and if I'm not running the AC I can get by, but when I tax the system by turning on the AC, it's too much, and it gets too hot, and the electric fan has a very hard time getting it cooled back down.. Also, found the radiator hose on the 'cold' side of the radiator would not get hot- this system is just not circulating water as it should.. So, a clogged radiator? stuck thermostat? air trapped in system? dying water pump?
One by one I've been able to eliminate everything down to the water pump- and what do you know, this particular model/make/year (2009 Ecotec 2.0) is well known for having water pump failure issues
So with a bit of research I learn that I really should have swapped in a new water pump when the engine was out, as it's not a pleasant job with the motor in the car.. Live and learn.. Not a huge deal, just a bit of work.. I go about swapping in a new pump, and somehow I screw up the part where you use the special water pump sprocket holding tool... I did it wrong somehow, and the sprocket slipped a tooth.. So now the front engine cover needs to come off, yay! Out comes the radiator and all front end ancillaries- you know the drill..
---- Long weekend later, here's what ended up happening... This motor has 2 timing chains, and the one I jumped teeth on drives the water pump and counterbalance shafts (which must be timed).. I learned that it's a fortunate thing that I had to dig into the front cover, because this motor's balance shafts were NOT in timed correctly- way out! (I confirmed and reconfirmed this)... someone must have gone after this 'rear' chain at some point and didn't know that things had to be aligned just so... Anyway, because I'm a bit obsessive, I knew I now had to investigate the 'real' timing chain up at the cams to insure that the crank/cams are in time-- off comes the valve cover.. In the end, the main timing chain was fine, and now the counterbalance shafts are in time too.. At this writing, the motor is going back together..
While I was this deep, I decided to take care of a few other issues... I pulled the thermostat and drilled a 1/16" hole to aid in purging air from the system (another known issue).. Replaced the front main seal... I also did a little trimming on the Volvo steering box to clearance the AC pulley that was a little too close for my liking.. Finally, I pulled the AC clutch to replace the clutch bearing, as it's a bit noisy (the NSK bearing ($14) part # is 35BD5020DUM if anyone reading this should need it in the future)... I'm still waiting for the new bearing to arrive, then in it goes..
So a simple water pump swap turned into much more, which given what I learned about the balance shafts, was likely a blessing in disguise (although I never detected a vibration before tear down- you'd think I'd have noticed...). There was nothing glaringly wrong with the old water pump, other than the design change (note the pressed on collar on the new pump)... I'm hopeful that it all works now.. maybe it was just an old tired pump with an antiquated design-- I should have it back on the road next weekend
--ccrunner
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Dean
1972 Honda N600 Restomod "ccrunner's N600 VFR800 repower"
1963 Volvo P1800 Restomod
http://locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=163091959 Berkeley SE492 Restomod...
viewtopic.php?f=36&t=19397"ccrunner's 1960 MGA coupe Restomod" found on MGExp.com