FDR
Dedicated LVC Member
Now I'm mad. I had to get towed, and being on a Parkway, AAA couldn't deal with us. I got lucky, though, because the tow company that came was part of AAA. Had I stopped a 1/10 mile further, I would have been in the next tow company's territory and they don't carry AAA.
02 V8
This has got to be one of the stupidest not-my-fault problems with the LS I've had. One of the idler pulleys on the passenger side fell off. Naturally the belt fell off, so I lost power steering (which is what tipped me off to the problem), the alternator stopped (the warning light/message was the second thing noticed and made the problem obvious), followed by the coolant temperature shooting up and getting the engine power reduced message. As far as I know, I didn't hit the Failsafe Cooling mode. As soon as I came to a stop (less than 5-10 seconds after the reduced power message) I turned it off.
I've only put 100 miles on this junkyard engine and I'm pissed because they claim to check all parts they pull. I'm sure this falls into the non-covered accessory category...
Here's where it was mounted. You can see the shiny bolt hole
Here's what fell off, which luckily all stayed in the engine bay.
It looks like it's part #8678B/YS-311. I don't see anything for the bolt or the big plate it's attached to, though. Any idea what the difference is between the 8678B (YS-311) and YS-311 listings? The 4 listings for the upper idler note whether they have the flange or not, but both lower listings say nothing.
I didn't look into the actual car much. It was late, I was pissed, and I still had to check some things on my Taurus that night. Presumably, I can just put everything back together and be fine. But what would cause this failure? I'm pretty sure all the smooth pulleys run counterclockwise, so I can see how the rotation would back the bolt out (assuming a normal thread), but it's obviously not supposed to do that. The bearing moved fine as far as I could tell. Is it likely that the bolt just wasn't tightened down enough? Is it worth trying to replace pulley, bolt, and flange? I assume so, considering something failed once already
The belt is probably fine (new at time of engine installment), but I'm replacing it. It looks like it's easy to shred it with all the turns, components, and edges it passes by. And being that overheating and failing alternators are so common on the LS, I'd rather not give it any excuses.
Am I likely safe from damage as far as overheating goes? Looking at the distance covered, I estimate I drove without the belt for 40 seconds, from the point I noticed to when I stopped. I was mostly coasting/braking as I made my way across the lanes. I think I'm fine. It ran fine for the 15 seconds I ran it to drive it up the driveway after getting dropped off (temp was under running temp). I know the coolant overflowed and it looks like the coolant level in the degas tank dropped about 2"
Does the Gen 1 have an auxiliary coolant pump? Would it be difficult to add one (probably)? Because that would have been nice to run with an override switch...
Maybe I should have named the car after someone less prone to getting into trouble. Trying to explain it to my girlfriend kept reminding me off Clark and Dawe's sketch, "Front Fell Off". What's wrong? The pulley fell off. Is this a normal problem? No, it's not very typical. So what went wrong? Well the pulley fell off. Can you fix it? Yes, but it'll have to get towed
I hope I didn't bore anyone with all the extraneous details.
Enjoy:
[video=youtube;WcU4t6zRAKg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcU4t6zRAKg[/video]
02 V8
This has got to be one of the stupidest not-my-fault problems with the LS I've had. One of the idler pulleys on the passenger side fell off. Naturally the belt fell off, so I lost power steering (which is what tipped me off to the problem), the alternator stopped (the warning light/message was the second thing noticed and made the problem obvious), followed by the coolant temperature shooting up and getting the engine power reduced message. As far as I know, I didn't hit the Failsafe Cooling mode. As soon as I came to a stop (less than 5-10 seconds after the reduced power message) I turned it off.
I've only put 100 miles on this junkyard engine and I'm pissed because they claim to check all parts they pull. I'm sure this falls into the non-covered accessory category...
Here's where it was mounted. You can see the shiny bolt hole
Here's what fell off, which luckily all stayed in the engine bay.
It looks like it's part #8678B/YS-311. I don't see anything for the bolt or the big plate it's attached to, though. Any idea what the difference is between the 8678B (YS-311) and YS-311 listings? The 4 listings for the upper idler note whether they have the flange or not, but both lower listings say nothing.
I didn't look into the actual car much. It was late, I was pissed, and I still had to check some things on my Taurus that night. Presumably, I can just put everything back together and be fine. But what would cause this failure? I'm pretty sure all the smooth pulleys run counterclockwise, so I can see how the rotation would back the bolt out (assuming a normal thread), but it's obviously not supposed to do that. The bearing moved fine as far as I could tell. Is it likely that the bolt just wasn't tightened down enough? Is it worth trying to replace pulley, bolt, and flange? I assume so, considering something failed once already
The belt is probably fine (new at time of engine installment), but I'm replacing it. It looks like it's easy to shred it with all the turns, components, and edges it passes by. And being that overheating and failing alternators are so common on the LS, I'd rather not give it any excuses.
Am I likely safe from damage as far as overheating goes? Looking at the distance covered, I estimate I drove without the belt for 40 seconds, from the point I noticed to when I stopped. I was mostly coasting/braking as I made my way across the lanes. I think I'm fine. It ran fine for the 15 seconds I ran it to drive it up the driveway after getting dropped off (temp was under running temp). I know the coolant overflowed and it looks like the coolant level in the degas tank dropped about 2"
Does the Gen 1 have an auxiliary coolant pump? Would it be difficult to add one (probably)? Because that would have been nice to run with an override switch...
Maybe I should have named the car after someone less prone to getting into trouble. Trying to explain it to my girlfriend kept reminding me off Clark and Dawe's sketch, "Front Fell Off". What's wrong? The pulley fell off. Is this a normal problem? No, it's not very typical. So what went wrong? Well the pulley fell off. Can you fix it? Yes, but it'll have to get towed
I hope I didn't bore anyone with all the extraneous details.
Enjoy:
[video=youtube;WcU4t6zRAKg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcU4t6zRAKg[/video]