Could This Be A Water Pump Problem?

[DaGr81]

As some of you may already have read ive been having water temp problems (the stupid gauge flickers under boost) mostly drops to 0 ish and flicks up to 80 etc and just generally being gay, ive open the air valve on top of the plenum to get the air pockets out as well as replaced the coolant etc etc still happening so today i went out and bought a nismo thermostat and justjap radiator to get it done tomorrow, if this doesnt fix it, could it be my water pump?

cheers for any advice or comments

[MANWHORE]

Flicking guage sounds to me like the gauge and/or temp sensor is faulty.

Best way for you to find out, is to get an aftermarket gauge with sensor. Some of the cheap ones are only around $50. That'll save you pulling out the waterpump to find out that it's fine. You dont' have to keep the guage permanently in your car, but just put it for testing purposes.

That's where I'd put my money. I've had something similar to that on another car before.

[bubba]

Are you actually having temp problems? by this I mean is it just the gauge in the dash that is being dicky? or is it an aftermarket gauge? have you plugged a laptop in and seen what the ECU water temp sensor is reading?

Edit: manwhore beat me to it.. I thought my car was running a little hot as the needle looked like it was sitting a little high, IIRC the ECU and the dash gauge use different senders, I plugged the laptop in and the ECU says it's running pretty much spot on 80deg

Edited May 16, 2007 by bubba

[DaGr81]

Are you actually having temp problems? by this I mean is it just the gauge in the dash that is being dicky? or is it an aftermarket gauge? have you plugged a laptop in and seen what the ECU water temp sensor is reading?

Edit: manwhore beat me to it.. I thought my car was running a little hot as the needle looked like it was sitting a little high, IIRC the ECU and the dash gauge use different senders, I plugged the laptop in and the ECU says it's running pretty much spot on 80deg

my pfc had a max water temp of 87 today , i dont think its cooling problems but then again the last time this happened my bottom radiator hose disconnected itself (silicone item as well with heavy duty clamp) trust me its not nice to be stuck on the m5 for an hour LOL just trying to avoid what happened before can never be too safe when it comes to these things...

and the radiator itself may have a hole in it as i saw fresh coolant when i checked it near the bottom of the radiator, but then i was told by advan that this could be air pockets in the cooling system, as they fixed it last time, but its started happening again...

i will do the temp gauge as well just to make sure

cheers

[GeeTR]

Air pockets sound like a good guess, but how sensitive is the water temp sensor? would it cause it to HARD flick from figure to figure? I reckon its electrical. Get a multimeter onto man

[RB30-POWER]

no way in the world its the water pump.

[tacker]

You have a wire that is shorting to ground, thats what the gauge will do when shorted to earth. If these is no water in the system the needle will sit down on the big C.

And if its a water pump take my word on it put an electric one in Much simpler to do and cools much better

[DaGr81]

You have a wire that is shorting to ground, thats what the gauge will do when shorted to earth. If these is no water in the system the needle will sit down on the big C.

And if its a water pump take my word on it put an electric one in Much simpler to do and cools much better

a wire which is shorting to ground...nfi wasnt happening before, so it must be a wire to do with the water temp gauge then? Theres plenty of water in the system and ive constantly checked the hoses they are fine checked for any cracks etc, checked the hose for the over flow bottle, guess after this radiator install im off to an auto electrician

Edited May 16, 2007 by DaGr81

[DaGr81]

dont understand how this could just appear outa no where though....any explanations for this?

[-_-StRyDeR-_-]

just to make us work harder to pay more bills on our pride and joy (skyline) haha

[STATUS]

pull the temp sensor out wire brush it and put it back in.

[tacker]

Sorry,

yer if the wire coming back from your temp sensor to the temp gauge could have rubbed through and if its bouncing around making contact to earth and then bouncing away to open the short will give you the old needle back and forth.

[DaGr81]

Sorry,

yer if the wire coming back from your temp sensor to the temp gauge could have rubbed through and if its bouncing around making contact to earth and then bouncing away to open the short will give you the old needle back and forth.

ok ive replaced the radiator (all good temp gauge is now at 68 degrees max) what probably happened was a plug came loose as i took the radiator out some plugs needed to be removed and once the new radiator was in it worked a charm when i plugged the wires back in. Unless ofcourse it'll come loose again later which would suck! but yeah surprised how good the fit of the just jap radiator is, bloody huge as well compared to the stocker, looks good in the engine bay too. Hopefully this wont show up again

cheers everyone on your inputs!

[Beer Baron]

68 max is too cool. water temp should be between 75 and 80. ftr a peak of 87 is not high at all. especially if that peak occured after you were stopped, or had shut off the engine, then re-started a short time later.

[bubba]

Agreed, 68deg is too cold.. did you put the Nismo thermostat in? I don't think you would have noticed much temp. drop at all with the new radiator and the old thermostat.. engines don't like to be too hot but they also don't like to be too cold.. poor fuel atomisation etc.

[DaGr81]

Agreed, 68deg is too cold.. did you put the Nismo thermostat in? I don't think you would have noticed much temp. drop at all with the new radiator and the old thermostat.. engines don't like to be too hot but they also don't like to be too cold.. poor fuel atomisation etc.

yeah nismo thermo is there, dunno why 68 (but that was checking the pfc hand controller when stopping at a light) oops forgot not 68 max it was at 68 when i looked lol i didnt check the max temp. maybe the fresh coolant? we'll see how it goes over the next few days, it was never about being hot, more the piece of sh!t radiator which was leaking lol as well as the crappy stock water gauge was pissing me off (needle bouncing around when accelerating), plus its a good upgrade for track days etc

Edited May 17, 2007 by DaGr81

[bubba]

It will be the nismo thermostat that has dropped the temp, I would be putting the standard one back in (if it's not FUBAR'd)

[DaGr81]

It will be the nismo thermostat that has dropped the temp, I would be putting the standard one back in (if it's not FUBAR'd)

damn, that means more money lol, guess i gotta sell the nismo one (but are you sure its the thermostat and not the new radiator? it is after all aluminium and huge in comparison to stock item)

[GTR1993]

I had this exact problem, bled coolant 3 times, new thermostadt the works, bought a new temp sender and fixed it right up.

[bubba]

The thermostat controls the temperature of the engine, it's set to open once a particular temperature is reached. This means that with the standard thermostat, regardless of how big the radiator you should still be running at ~80deg. The bigger radiator will just allow extra breathing space when the engine is making its' max power which unless you're pushing 300rwkw+ shouldn't be much of a difference, it will also help on those really hot australian days.