Water Pump Bearing Failure?

[Snax]

I've noticed a significant dripping from somewhere above the front swaybar, but I can't tell for sure if it is from the pump or not. Is that a common place for it to drip when the pump fails?

[takza]

Could be anything...but I wouldn't let it go.

[Petros]

Is that a common place for it to drip when the pump fails?

Yup!

[Snax]

Well the pump that's on there looks a bit old anyway, so I'm just going to order a new one anyway. It really leaks too much to drive it more than a few miles at a time, so I'm going to park it until I can at least do that.

P.S. I love how cheap this car is to fix!

[Shannon]

Antifreeze drips are not necessarily below the source. Antifreeze runs along and drips at the lowest point of it's rivulet. The thermostat hose and radiator hoses are also in that area.
I run the car and use an auto mirror at the end of a long rod to try and see exactly where it is seeping out. The last time I changed my timing belt, I replaced my water pump, even though it was fine. I had a nice water pump with a metal propeller. The replacement had a plastic propeller. So, my guess is that the Toyota water pump is much better quality. I still have it and may rebuild it, and put it back in at the next timing belt change.

[Highlander]

If you're replacing the water pump, check while you have the timing cover off to see if there is seepage down the front of the block from behind the water pump. There's an O-ring on the suction cover that gives me fits whenever I'm in there and haven't replaced it. The suction cover is what the water pump gasket seals to. As you go to remove the pump, you'll notice that the suction cover moves. Get the O-ring for that and the bypass hose from the dealer and replace all three at the same time along with the pump. It did the trick for me.

[Jarf]

For what it is worth, the factory pump comes complete with the back half of the housing, all for under $100.
Brand spanking new, not a rebuild. Just make sure to get the o-ring for the back where the pipe bolts on.
Make sure you replace the by-pass o-rings same time, heck for another $5 replace the by-pass tube as well,
then you can forget about it for another 20 years.

[Snax]

Funny how I revel in this car being cheap to fix, yet I have only just now found the money to actually do something about it! The pump is definitely a goner, but now so is the fuel pump!

Oh well, a couple of remans from Rockauto are only $41 including shipping, so hopefully it will be on the road again soon.

The final straw for me to park it was when one of the radiator hoses (that I apparently knicked when installing the block heater) finally blew in a huge cloud of steam on an ice cold day while rolling into work. It was quite impressive really. I was able to do a solid repair on it at work and get the car home, but it has been sitting since then with only a battery tender on it until two weeks ago. That's when I discovered that the fuel pump was no longer moving any fuel. I think it was alreay on it's way out, but letting it sit allowed it to lose it's prime and it simply can't enough fuel back in it to work again.

[Jarf]

Snax - be careful of making assumptions. Much money is spent on auto parts that is totally unwarranted. DIAGNOSE your faults prior to ordering parts. What do you do when you replace the fuel pump and you still have no fuel coming to the carb? Even with advanced age, factory parts rarely fail unless something else is imposing on it. Your fuel pump is mechanical, if it really has "just lost it's prime" then pouring a bit of gas in the carb (enough to have it fire) should spin the pump fast enough to suck it up the line. Usually the cause of "lost prime" is actually rust perforations in the fuel line that will allow air in but not bad enough to let fuel out.
There is also an electric fuel valve on the carb that you may want to check, (and several other things too.)
You mention that you "apparently" nicked the hose... do you actually know that you did that, or are you just assuming you did.
The factory hoses are damned tough, tougher than you think. a blown hose is usually not caused by a bad hose, it is usually caused by the system being under strain and the weakest part fails first.
You will want to do a thorough inspection and make sure you have not got other problems or damage.
While they are "cheap" to fix, ignored problems grow like cancer and can quickly become insurmountable.
By the way, you would be well advised to replace the t-stat while doing everything else, it is likely seized closed, hence the ballistic hose failure.
My 2 cents.

[Snax]

You know what else is a good thing to avoid? Being a dumbass by folding the new pump gasket back onto itself when one replaces said coolant pump! Grrrrr . . I can't believe I did that. It leaks much more now.

Oh well, I've done worse, and ruining a $1 gasket is certainly at the low end of that spectrum!

As for the knicked hose, I'm pretty sure it was me. I have had that hose off and on multiple times at that location to install the block heater and reverse flush the heater core (which worked marvelously BTW). It failed right at the point where my little screw clamp dug into it a bit and was probably precipitated by the leaky pump/low coolant level, so a combination of stress and carelessness no doubt.

[Snax]

All is well again. 99 cents and another hour of labor has the car back in action. Now all I need to do is re-register it. I can't imagine a more fitting coincidence than to pull out onto my street 500 feet away from an approaching county sheriff after having never once in the 9 years I've lived here having had that happen. I literally drove 200'! Fortunately he didn't bother to stop me in my non-current titled, uninsured, expired tag car! It's staying parked until all of that is fixed.

[takza]

Careful...the universe is conspiring against you?