Water pump stealth failure?

[Jim Jordan]

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>-----Original Message-----
>From: Jim Jordan [mailto:j8k3sp00n at gmail.com] 
>Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 7:09 PM
>To: quattro at audifans.com
>Subject: Water pump stealth failure?
>
>Hi,
>
>I still have indicated overheating on my 5KT.  I've replaced 
>virtually everything in the cooling system except the water 
>pump.  It was replaced about 20K miles ago along with the TB.  
>I suspect that the garage that was supposed to replace it 
>didn't or used a junk one.  The one that was in there prior to 
>that "work" was a lifetime warrantied Graf which doesn't have 
>a good rep in some quarters.
>
--------snip-------------

Hi,

My use of stealth had to do with the fact that I had a hard time determining
if the water pump worked.  I'm told that the usual failure mode is for the
impeller, especially plastic ones, to come free of the driving shaft and
fail to rotate.  Someone suggested clear water hoses to watch it.  Good
idea.  I went to a radiator shop wrench and he used a laser temp gun to
determine that the cooling system was working just fine;  it was the gauge.
I "fixed" the gauge, sort of, by grounding the voltage stabilizer to get a
correct 10V reference for the temp and gas gauge.  I hope the designer of
the flexible circuit that was on the back of the instrument clusters such as
mine is having a very uncomfortable retirement.

Cheers!

Jim Jordan