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Delicious It!My sister's 1998 Ford Taurus caused me some headaces the other day. She was having a problem with the engine over heating and cold air was blowing from the vents with the heater on High. Sometimes it would blow a little warm air, if the car was moving, and it would get hot if she idled too long. No hot air would come out when she was sitting still. It's winter, and it's cold! This car has around 198K miles. The engine is a 6 Cyl 3.0L overhead valve (OHV)
Last Resort: Replace Water Pump - The fins rusted off!
Symptoms/keywords: Heater won't work, Heater broken, No heat, blowing cold air, motor too hot.
Detalied Steps:
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Heater Core - She had the heater core replaced less than two years ago. She took it back to the same shop, and they told her it was the heater core clogged up again. They quoted $500.00 to replace it. This sounded bogus to her, so she called me.
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Heater Control – We checked to make sure the heater control was working by turning the knob to cold, then back to hot. We could hear the flap opening and closing. We could also hear the tone of the air flow changing, so we were fairly certain this was working.
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Back Flush - We completely flush the system using a cheap water hose attachment purchased from Autozone. I removed all the hoses and ran clean water through the Radiator, Engine and Heater Core. The system was very dirty looking but NOT clogged, and there were no leaks. This did not fix the problem heater problem, but the car didn't seem to over heat anymore. (Keep in mind, it is cold outside)
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Thermostat - This is the second thing we did because it's the cheapest. The car warmed up faster now, but the heater still did not work.
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Coolant Recovery Expansion Reservoir - This is the tank where the antifreeze is filled. We suspected the cap might be bad. This is a pressurized system; it does not have the typical pressure/filler cap on the radiator. The pressure cap is on this expansion tank. None of the local automotive parts dealers sold just the cap alone, so we purchased the entire tank. It was only $24, and our original one was very dirty anyway. Still no heat!
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WATER PUMP – So we now have around 36 man hours of work into this problem. Everything else in the cooling system has been checked or replaced. The water pump was not leaking and we know it is turning. It's not the hardest task, but not easy either. With no other options, we removed the water pump. We took it off and found that the fins on the water pump were almost completely rusted away. The pump was not circulating the water!
This is the first time I had
seen a water pump do this.
This water pump was used in several different models and cost me around $41 (with core) from Autozone.
Affects the following 1995-2005 Ford Taurus models:
1995, 1996, 1997: GL; 6 Cyl 3.0L; "GAS, FI, VIN U"
1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003: LX; 6 Cyl 3.0L; "GAS, FI, VIN U"