One of my fans stopped working. High temp was running....but not red area. Just below it.
Exited highway, coming off ramp, car shut down. Most of coolant was gone. Car would not and still won't start. No blown head gasket.
Someone told me that I probably need to replace water pump?
It's turning and cranking....won't start.

Anyone with a procedural checklist?
Not good at diagnosis, but great at turning the wrench

Help

Thanks

 

Plugs out, measure compression. Just to rule out something catastrophic. And a good opportunity to look at the plug tips.

Then it's down to lack-of-fuel or lack-of-spark.
- Spray carb-cleaner in the throttle body & see if the engine fires for a second

Trouble is, when you loose "all" of your coolant, the temperature sender (for the gauge) doesn't read accurately because it's in the air not in circulating coolant. Cylinder heads can get hotter than that, maybe messed up the plugs?

 

Compression test with plugs out is performed how? Have never done this.
i can probably find useful and affordable took at Harbor Freight?

Why would the coolant be empty? Did it evaporate during the overheating process?
Should I be looking for a leak?

 

Well, you said most of the coolant was gone. Yes, you should be looking for evidence of a leak.

Take the spark plugs out. If they look nasty from overheating you could just try a new set & see if that's it.

Compression test...
A compression gauge fits into the sparkplug hole, either screws into the hole or it has a rubber cone that you press into the hole.
- Disable fuel & spark. You can pull a fuse for the fuel pump. I think your engine has individual coils you can unplug them from the wiring harness.
- One person holds the gauge into a sparkplug hole, another person floors the accelerator pedal and cranks the starter. Crank the starter until the pressure gauge reaches some pressure & doesn't go higher.
- Do that at each sparkplug position & write down the pressures. Someone around here can say what's a good or bad pressure, but certainly all should be "near" the same.

 

My leak would be coming from a number of places I understand.
Could it be possible, through the overheating problem that occurred because one of my fans went down, that it would be the water pump?
I'm trying to understand it a little , gather info as much as I can before going into it

Fan goes down, temp goes up to high, car shuts down, all coolant has disappeared, car will turn over and cranking but will not start
sounds like almost textbook situation.

Just want to look in almost right places

Might there be a crack in engine , is this the reason for compression test?

Could the seals around water pump be the leak?
When I filled the car with coolant again, there was no evidence of a leak anywhere. This confused me greatly
Thanks for all your help but

 

Leak might be slow, over a longer period of time. When was the last time you verified coolant in the actual radiator? (There's scenarios where the overflow bottle has coolant while the radiator is gradually going empty)

When the water level gets low enough to uncover the temperature sender, the engine might be hotter than you think. So yeah, while a headgasket or a crack might not be very likely it's also easy to do a compression test so you aren't just assuming it's good.

But what I was thinking more likely than that, was when it got hot maybe the plugs got too hot & they're screwed up.

Someone can remind me about the V-6... I think the waterpump is still driven by the timing belt on a 2003 V6. Doesn't seem likely that it'll quit pumping water. I think they're so much more likely to start leaking around the shaft-seals.