So my brother recently stated having overheating problems on his 98 trans am. There is a very loud annoying noise coming from the water pump so we figured it was the water pump. We had a mechanic check it out and he told us the same thing the water pump is no good! So we replaced the water pump with a new one. After changing it the car still overheats and the noise is still there! i can hear a bubbling sound coming from the radiator! Please help!


P.s fans keep running after the car is off!

 

If the noise was still there after the mechanic replaced the pump, what did he think it was? Loud annoying noise in that area makes me think a bearing is going out. IF the loud noise is causing the overheating and not just a seperate problem, maybe something is between the fans and the rad. I could think of a lot of things that would cause overheating, but most don't make noise.

By the way 'car off and fans still running', you mean with the key in the on position but the engine not running--correct?

 

The car is old enough that it could be the radiator. Pull it and have a radiator shop test and clean it.

 

So we bled the system today and it seems to be running fine! No overheating so at all. the noise is still there but i was told by several mechanics that its the belt that got wet and its causing the noise. Hopefully thats it. Thanks 4 the advice!

 

So the noise WAS seperate from the overheating problem, I wondered about that. Assuming your overheating problem is fixed now...

I had a belt squealing once and people told me about a can of spray that you could buy at auto stores to stop the belt from squealing. I tried the stuff and it didn't seem to help.

How did the belt get wet? Was it a coolant leak spraying on the belt? Bad seal on the water pump or is something else leaking?

 

At first we thought it was all the same problem but apparently it wasn't. It started raining as soon as we finished taking the pump off and the belt got wet because we had just left it on the the driveway. I think the spray your talking about is called belt dressing its made by STP and I've heard it only takes away the noising momentarily not permanently. The noise is started to annoy the **** out of me so any ideas of making it shut up would be very appreciated.

 

Take off both belts, wash all pulleys with soap and water well. Let dry. Go buy Gatorback belts.

 

New Belts if it's a squeal. I suppose it's possible you have a Power Steering or AC bearing going out...

 

have you tried looking at your harmonic balancer? my belt was squeeling really bad and when my car was running i noticed that the harmonic balancer had a lot of wobble to it. after i replaced it, the squeeling went away.