So a few weeks ago my powersteering belt broke, replaced it. Last week it started making noise, thought it was the new belt, tightened it, seemed better, then got worse, oh so much worse.

So, I start getting screeching noises while taking off in first, once into second they would stop, im thinking belts still, I check them, they are loose, i'll get new ones this weekend. Power steering is acting up, not as responsive, I keep thinking belts. On my drive into work today I hear a grinding......no good, but I gotta get to work I'll check it out later. After work I poke around, check the pullys they seem ok, belts are still a bit slack but they are old, new ones taught, start the car and throw in in neutral, throttle it, no issues so to speak. Hit the freeway.

3 mi in on the fwy I heard an awful grinding followed by silence. No grinding, no windy sound no resistance to power steering.....the lack of windy sound got me. I pull over. My fan has torqued its self off my water pump sheering the shaft, and planted its self into my radiator. So now I know what the problem was. Bad Fan Clutch. sheeeeeiiiiitttt.

Need a Water pump, Fan clutch and Radiator by oh tomorrow morning to get to work. good times.

Found a nice write up on rebuilding a fan clutch, seems the way to go as new ones are 80 or so, water pimp is cheap AZ for 20 bucks. the Radiator however, well Im gonna see if I can salvage it with some JB weld. temp fix at least. But still, pretty bummed.

 

Not cool!

 

Oh that would not be fun.... If you were thinking of an electric fan now is the time to do it...

 

So should I attempt to rebuild the fan clutch or just get one of the 50 dollar ones floatin around?

 

Alright, new water pump, belts and fan clutch are installed, luckily it does not appear my radiator is leaking, but i have some JB weld in case.

This morning however almost immediately after hitting the freeway it got really rough, rattling, steering was poor, Thought I had lost a belt. Nope! it was the mounting screws on the fan....I had only hand tightened them, forgot about that after getting everything installed a cleaned up, they didn't shake loose till the freeway, hahah! took care of that on the side of the road, now its smoother at higher RPMs then I can remember in recent history. feels nice. next up, clutch. suspension, turbo swap (i kidd, sorta)

 

Glad you got it all worked out. As for the fan clutch, that is weird I only paid like $35 or less with a lifetime warranty. It didn't seem to help my overheating issues so I ended up getting a Silla 3 core radiator. No cooling issues since...