his pic in the camping section looks like he lost oil or coolant

 

Water pump gave out, bearings broke enough to let the pulley sag to the point where the belt walked off, instant battery warning, followed by engine temp warning and subsequent engine overheat warning as i pulled off the road and shut it off. (same belt)

It's ok though, we weren't in the middle of no where, whilst towing the camper, as well as being ~250 miles from home, so towing the truck didn't cost $520 and having some 'random' shop replace the pump, thermostat and coolant didn't cost $760 with non Motorcraft parts, which i now have to replace as it has all the same problems people report when using an aftermarket thermostat, fans on crazy high a lot of the time.
Also got various temperature rises during the eventual trip home a day later, as it wasn't able to be bled properly (shop didn't know that)

Yes, that's my coolant river on the road...

 

Geez, good you knew immediately what to do. I take it no engine damage.

 

That's no fun even without the camper.

 

Yeah, it had been giving some warnings starting when i was parking the camper, restarted to some horrendous screeching/graunching sounds, which went away, but general roughness to the engine sound (if you're sensitive to what your engine sounds like) and it eventually gave up on the way home a few days later.

Engine otherwise seems fine, it shouldn't have been enough to kill the engine, temp gauge never hit the top, but was dang close as i shut it off.

Thermostat and coolant should be here on monday, another job i have to do, more expense after already paying someone to do most of this.

 

Funny story, like 20 years ago me and my dad drove to Missouri to see my brother in my dads Subaru.

right around Indianapolis it started overheating. First place we stopped looked at it, asked what it was, and said *We don’t work on those things*

took about an hour to find a mechanic, water pump and all

 

Hey Hey,

First off i just want to say thank you for documenting your journey here, i just bought a my dream truck and i have been learning so much about my truck through your experiences!

I just wanted to ask here what sparked you to service your rear differential? What sings were you seeing or noises you were hearing to check on this?

 

Because i didn't have service history, a used vehicle has no actual proof in a lot of cases so you perform preventative maintenance in order to keep it longer. In some cases, even with history, you've either hit the next service milestone or just run into the first time service for a particular item. Used-vehicle buying "basics" in my personal opinion.

 

Sorry to hear about all that! How many miles were you at when the water pump gave out? I'm at 194k miles roughly on mine now but recently bought a 2026 CR-V Trailsport hybrid for a daily so the truck is semi-retired and getting some upgrades/maintenance done this spring.

 

Looks like around 111k miles.

It did give warnings before that, but, middle of summer and camping season, i wasn't convinced it was water pump warnings. The biggest actual warning it gave me was after i towed 250miles away and parked the camper in the spot, unhooked, fired it back up again and it absolutely screamed at me for maybe 30 seconds before quietening down again. I was dreading the drive home and sure enough, it leg go on that drive home, bearings collapsed which caused the pulley angle to drop and the belt to roll off. Temp started rising and a convenient charge/battery warning/alarm flashed up (due to no alternator) so i was able to pull off and stop almost immediately.