PROBLEM SOLVED!

Some dum@ss who owned the car before me put the thermostat in backwards. Now everything works fine. some people should not work on their own cars.

 

Ouch - but at least it's fixed!

 

Good catch after all ...

 

Wow, that's kinda hard to do and not have it leak. My thermo has an intergrated rubber gasket that fits into the groove in the housing. It's almost kinda impossible to install this backwards.

 

Don't worry, some PO's manage the impossible!

 

Same as the water pump?

 

Water pump = full change.
Thermo coolant change not necessary unless it needs it.

I would change it anyway.

 

Does the water pump go bad on these cars?

 

Some model years (i dont know if all) came with water pumps with plastic vanes, which can sometimes break off apparently. I did mine at 98k and the impeller looked very good, though I don't know if it had been changed before. You can replace it with a pump with a metal impeller and leave it for probably the lifetime of the car..

 

thanks/

 

As far as I know it is only the 1998 models which sometimes had the problem.
I just replaced mine.
The vanes still looked like new, but the bearing was tight and made some noise.
A replacement Airtex only runs for ~$33 at Rockauto, a no-brainer.
More Information for AIRTEX AW4124