Water pump / belt issue?

swj97

New Member
Joined
Dec 15, 2023
Messages
4
Location
south carolina
I have a 2014 Wrangler Jk.All had seemed fine and I was driving yesterday and out of nowhere l lost power steering and seconds later my battery light came on and the jeep began to overheat very quickly. Come to find out my serpentine belt snapped. While planning to just replace the tensioner and belt itself I noticed that the water pump pulley/bearing looked out of place and when moved coolant was leaking out of it and had a lot of play in it as pictured below. After checking the tensioner and other bearings, they all seemed to be fine so I ended up just replacing the water pump and serpentine belt. I have since ran the Jeep and drove around town some and had no issues. I started to second-guess myself and out of curiosity does anybody happen to know if the water pump being like the picture below could have caused the belt to snap or did I mis-diagnose the issue?
 
Yes, absolutely a loose or binding water pump can cause a belt to come off the pulley and snap - especially if the belt has some age.

If the engine is running fine, you can stop worrying and enjoy knowing you correctly diagnosed and fixed the issue.
 
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