Many of you may remember this event from a few months ago, but I’ll refresh your memory just in case. We have a 2000 Ford Taurus with 215,000ish miles. It has had a small coolant leak present for the past 2-3 years that was alleviated by some stop leak tabs. On our last highway drive it lost all coolant fairly quickly. It has since been parked. On our final drive home it did overheat ONCE. I made it to the nearest gas station and filled it up with water allowing us to make it home with the temp needle in the “middle” of the temp guage. Since then the car has been parked with the occasional drive around the block to keep it limber.
Since this event there is a “marbles in a can” sound coming from the drive belt / timing chain side of the engine.
Oil is still full and clean, no obvious mixing of coolant and oil. The car drives fine. If you rev it and let off the gas in neutral there is no knocking noise present, or during drives for that matter.
I will attach a video. It’s obviously hard to say, but curious if you Vulcan experts recognize this sound and may be able to identify it. I’m wondering if it’s from the water pump? Maybe the fact that it was very low on coolant burnt it out? Maybe the overheat burnt a pulley out? Not sure really.
I’m just curious more than anything to see if you recognized the sound and could identify it. I suppose it could have some sort of timing / top end damage from a single overheat?
Something also of note, I can fill up the coolant reservoir and drive around for a while and lose only a little coolant / water, but as soon as you shut the car OFF and OPEN the coolant reservoir cap, the water will DUMP out from underneath. Everything is wet down there so it is hard to see where it is coming from. I’m assuming not a hose since it seems to hold the majority of the coolant/ water while idling or driving. I thought that may be a helpful clue.
Anyway, here is the video of the sound during idle. It’s that hollow, marbles in a can sound.
Since this event there is a “marbles in a can” sound coming from the drive belt / timing chain side of the engine.
Oil is still full and clean, no obvious mixing of coolant and oil. The car drives fine. If you rev it and let off the gas in neutral there is no knocking noise present, or during drives for that matter.
I will attach a video. It’s obviously hard to say, but curious if you Vulcan experts recognize this sound and may be able to identify it. I’m wondering if it’s from the water pump? Maybe the fact that it was very low on coolant burnt it out? Maybe the overheat burnt a pulley out? Not sure really.
I’m just curious more than anything to see if you recognized the sound and could identify it. I suppose it could have some sort of timing / top end damage from a single overheat?
Something also of note, I can fill up the coolant reservoir and drive around for a while and lose only a little coolant / water, but as soon as you shut the car OFF and OPEN the coolant reservoir cap, the water will DUMP out from underneath. Everything is wet down there so it is hard to see where it is coming from. I’m assuming not a hose since it seems to hold the majority of the coolant/ water while idling or driving. I thought that may be a helpful clue.
Anyway, here is the video of the sound during idle. It’s that hollow, marbles in a can sound.
