My son was driving his 1998 XJ into a parking lot and said that he lost his steering. He looked under the hood and the belt was twisted up and he said that there was antifreeze leaking every where. I haven't seen it yet since I'm at work. Any suggestions? Water pump possible?

Thanks

 

BUMP

 

Since you haven't seen it yet. I would be guessing. My guess would be the water pump completely crapped out. What my have happen it the bearings went out or the pump shaft snapped. If that happened you can twist or throw the belt.

 

You are gonna' need to look of course. The belt can go for allot of reasons, then it might have hit something. The good news, it's hard for the fan to drive it into the radiator, since it drives the fan.

 

If the water pump crapped out would I be able to turn it by hand? Anyone ever have problems with the tensioner pulley going bad? Sounds like the water may have come from radiator cap due to overheating between the time the belt broke and the time he pulled over (80 yards).

 

If one of the pulleys seized enough to toast the belt, you should be able to feel something. It could have been any if them. Or maybe the belt just gave it up. I highly doubt it would overheat in 80 yards, unless that took 10 minutes! (OK maybe a little less). You can feel for ANY roughness turning the various deals. Alt bearings go, the idler/tensioner, yes the water pump or the fan ect. The water pump DOES have a seal that can leak even if the bearing is still holding up. (you would see evidence of leaking at the weep hole)
You might just take a look at the crank pulley and see that nothing looks funky there. It's outer ring is pressed on with a rubber separator, those give it up sometimes.

 

I'm off work in an hour and a half so I'll have to do a good inspection on all the pulleys to make sure they are moving well, aligned, and not messed up in any way. I'm hoping that maybe the belt was just old and gave way. There didn't appear to be a water leak from the pump and there were no signs (noises) of any pulleys going bad! I hope it's a cheap easy fix.

 

Whatever chucked the belt off should be pretty obvious.

 

I hope so. Hoping idler pulley or tensioner.

 

When the bearings blew out of my idler pulley it shot the ball bearings around the engine bay and wrapped the belt around the fan. I was able to drive 2.5 miles home though

 

Just agreeing with the above. The idler. (on my 90, not sure what's different there), my idler went once as well. And nice that, easy and right on top.

Just a note on a broken serpentine belt. There seems to be a "maw", directly below where a broken thermostat housing ear will fall. Where the belt goes down around the crank pulley, any little thing falling in there can make it sort of explode.(I mean the belt might go with a bang!)