It is losing coolant and the garage smells when Jamie parks the car. I think it is the water pump or something attached to it.
I could just do the water pump, but it could be a seal for the water pump housing to block, according to this:
https://www.chevymalibuforum.com/thread ... ak.116566/
I could buy the seal but then I have to take the entire housing off anyway. I can replace the thermostat but I can buy the entire thing with thermostat, the seal I need, and a new water pump attached already. Seems to make sense.
https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.ph ... 08&jsn=470
A little more pricey at $143.79 but also a more thorough/sure repair. I guess I'd just add a belt. Not sure what's going on with the tensioner as I was unable to loosen it to check the water pump bearing. Not sure if I'd need to throw a new tensioner on or if I was using it wrong.
Also I'd change coolant at this point.
135k on it. Ironically, I also had to do the water pump on Jamie's first Malibu. I had to do a water pump on my Caprice back in the day. And I think the Fleetwood water pump also went. So I guess I've done a few. But I've also owned a lot of cars that did not require one.
2014 Chevy Malibu: coolant leak?
Re: 2014 Chevy Malibu: coolant leak?
Tensioner seems fine. I was able to take the tension off and the WP pulley did have a little bit of play in it, so I think that's the issue. There is spray along the radius of the pulley on a nearby coolant hose anyway.
I ordered the whole water pump/thermostat housing, a serpentine belt tool (it's like a little 2 jaw thing on a stick - I haven't owned many FWD cars) and a serpentine belt.
I'll do the coolant during this job because that's the best time.
I ordered the whole water pump/thermostat housing, a serpentine belt tool (it's like a little 2 jaw thing on a stick - I haven't owned many FWD cars) and a serpentine belt.
I'll do the coolant during this job because that's the best time.
Re: 2014 Chevy Malibu: coolant leak?
I completed this job today along with a new serpentine belt. Took me a while but it wasn't bad work. It's kind of a novelty that I can get my hands and arms in the engine bay.
I began by lifting the car with the Quick Jack. The coolant catch pan wouldn't fit under otherwise. I got fancy and stuck some hose to the drain nipple and used the actual radiator drain.
Of course that drains kind of slowly so I got even more fancy and used my Astro coolant pressurizing tool. It has an air regulator so I just set it to something really low to force the rest of the fluid out of the drain valve on the radiator. This car uses a 20 psi cap by the way, so the system can probably take in excess of that.
Remove exhaust manifold heat shield. 3 bolts. Disconnect O2 sensor plug and thread the harness through the heat shield. It can be removed from the engine bay.
Loosen spring clamp on upper coolant pipe. I used my fancy spring clamp pliers and ended up just leaving them locked open right on the hose for my convenience. Unbolt pipe from water outlet housing and remove pipe from engine bay.
Loosen spring clamp on lower radiator hose. Ditto - used another pliers and left them right on there. For my convenience. Pull lower hose from thermostat neck,
Loosen belt tensioner and slip belt off of water pump pulley. No I didn't leave the 1/2" ratchet on the tensioner....
Remove a few Christmas tree wire clips. Then just remove the three 13mm bolts holding the entire water outlet housing to the engine block. The bottom one is totally blind but did not bother me at all. Remove from vehicle.
For assembly, the new unit came with the thermostat and outlet preinstalled, a block gasket and the WP preinstalled.
I used a new upper pipe gasket which even has these metal tabs you can bend down to keep it attached to the pipe (because it would be upside down) as you wrangle the pipe into place behind the exhaust manifold.
Slapped the new belt on and the old one looked pretty good actually. No cracks. Meh, now it's new. I used my new handy Gates belt tool but as belts go this car was pretty easy. Crank pulley, A/C, water pump, tensioner and alt. That's it. No other pulleys. No power steering pump. No disconnecting engine mounts (unlike Jamie's previous Malibu) needed.
To fill I waffled back and forth between just dumping some coolant in and using my sweet vacuum fill tool. I am 99% sure I could have just dumped coolant into the pressure tank since it looked like the highest point in the system. But I got my vacuum fill tool out because it's fun. It's more work in some ways because I set up the bucket of coolant on a ladder but I think this is actually unnecessary. One cool thing about the bucket technique is you can just dump a gallon of distilled water and a gallon of coolant concentrate into the bucket. No spillage or trying to mix 50/50. So I did that and then pulled a vacuum on the cooling system.
Close the vacuum valve, open the coolant valve. It just slurps in all the coolant it needs basically. I shut off the valve when coolant began to climb higher than the proper level.
It's been my experience that you have to top off over the next temp cycle but that's not a big deal. I suppose if I let it slurp until the vacuum was depleted then it might actually get the level right in one go. Something to try next time I guess.
Fun fact: this car had a WP back in 2017, which evidently stranded my mom (hope she didn't overheat it). I guess it needs a WP every 5 years or so. Not awesome but also not that bad. If it needs one again I might just do the WP and not pull the housing from the vehicle. I wanted a new block gasket and thermostat but I'm not sure that will be necessary if it needs one in 5 years. We'll see what happens. For now, good to go.
I began by lifting the car with the Quick Jack. The coolant catch pan wouldn't fit under otherwise. I got fancy and stuck some hose to the drain nipple and used the actual radiator drain.
Of course that drains kind of slowly so I got even more fancy and used my Astro coolant pressurizing tool. It has an air regulator so I just set it to something really low to force the rest of the fluid out of the drain valve on the radiator. This car uses a 20 psi cap by the way, so the system can probably take in excess of that.
Remove exhaust manifold heat shield. 3 bolts. Disconnect O2 sensor plug and thread the harness through the heat shield. It can be removed from the engine bay.
Loosen spring clamp on upper coolant pipe. I used my fancy spring clamp pliers and ended up just leaving them locked open right on the hose for my convenience. Unbolt pipe from water outlet housing and remove pipe from engine bay.
Loosen spring clamp on lower radiator hose. Ditto - used another pliers and left them right on there. For my convenience. Pull lower hose from thermostat neck,
Loosen belt tensioner and slip belt off of water pump pulley. No I didn't leave the 1/2" ratchet on the tensioner....
Remove a few Christmas tree wire clips. Then just remove the three 13mm bolts holding the entire water outlet housing to the engine block. The bottom one is totally blind but did not bother me at all. Remove from vehicle.
For assembly, the new unit came with the thermostat and outlet preinstalled, a block gasket and the WP preinstalled.
I used a new upper pipe gasket which even has these metal tabs you can bend down to keep it attached to the pipe (because it would be upside down) as you wrangle the pipe into place behind the exhaust manifold.
Slapped the new belt on and the old one looked pretty good actually. No cracks. Meh, now it's new. I used my new handy Gates belt tool but as belts go this car was pretty easy. Crank pulley, A/C, water pump, tensioner and alt. That's it. No other pulleys. No power steering pump. No disconnecting engine mounts (unlike Jamie's previous Malibu) needed.
To fill I waffled back and forth between just dumping some coolant in and using my sweet vacuum fill tool. I am 99% sure I could have just dumped coolant into the pressure tank since it looked like the highest point in the system. But I got my vacuum fill tool out because it's fun. It's more work in some ways because I set up the bucket of coolant on a ladder but I think this is actually unnecessary. One cool thing about the bucket technique is you can just dump a gallon of distilled water and a gallon of coolant concentrate into the bucket. No spillage or trying to mix 50/50. So I did that and then pulled a vacuum on the cooling system.
Close the vacuum valve, open the coolant valve. It just slurps in all the coolant it needs basically. I shut off the valve when coolant began to climb higher than the proper level.
It's been my experience that you have to top off over the next temp cycle but that's not a big deal. I suppose if I let it slurp until the vacuum was depleted then it might actually get the level right in one go. Something to try next time I guess.
Fun fact: this car had a WP back in 2017, which evidently stranded my mom (hope she didn't overheat it). I guess it needs a WP every 5 years or so. Not awesome but also not that bad. If it needs one again I might just do the WP and not pull the housing from the vehicle. I wanted a new block gasket and thermostat but I'm not sure that will be necessary if it needs one in 5 years. We'll see what happens. For now, good to go.