'96 jimmy serpentine belt

Hi,

Long story short - one of the pulleys for the serpentine belt seized and broke the belt. I was forced to drive the vehicle home (it was -30C and I had my 3 yr old and 4 month old in the vehicle) - about 15 km. The Temperature gauge indicated about 125 (max on the gauge), but the vehicle didn't overheat (perhaps due to the -30C temp).

I've sinced replaced the belt and pulley, and drove the vehicle for a couple of minutes. The temperature gauge indicated a temp of about 100, yet I was not getting any heat in the vehicle.

Just wondering what other problems may have occured (whether from driving the 15km without the belt, or with the initial failure of the belt - or whatever).

I'm hesitant to drive it now, so as not to cause more problems...

any insight would be appreciated. tia.

daz

well, if your engine did overheat, and now when you run it it gets hotter than usual, your thermostat might have gotten screwed up, and you might want to change that.

thanks for the reply Jack.

well, I took the jimmy for a quick spin this evening and I think you're right, the engine was perhaps running a bit hotter than usual... and there's still no interior heat with the fan running.

Sounds definitely like thermostat troubles, no?

How difficult is that to replace?

thanks for the reply Jack.

well, I took the jimmy for a quick spin this evening and I think you're right, the engine was perhaps running a bit hotter than usual... and there's still no interior heat with the fan running.

Sounds definitely like thermostat troubles, no?

How difficult is that to replace?

Why you kept driving with a vehicle overheating is beyond me. NEVER EVER do that again. It doesn't matter how cold it is outside, your engine cannot cope without coolant flow.

If you are getting up to close to the middle of the temp gauge which is around 100 now, you are completely normal.

100c = 212f which is perfectly normal.

The heat problem is more than like caused by:

A) Your blending door is stuck and is not routing the air through heater core for heat.

B) You Heater core is plugged and needs to be reverse flushed and cleaned out.

Best way to test if the heater core is plugged is to grab the two coolant lines going into the passenger compartment and see if one is hot and one is cold. If so, the core is blocked and isn't allowing coolant through it.

You will need to have a complete cooling system flush and fill along with your heater core.

I hope you have flushed the cooling system sometime in the past 10 years or you are looking for problems coming up soon.

Also, replace the rad cap with a NON AC delco rad cap. Stant is good.

the thermostat isnt that hard to change, just drain all your coolant out,then take the big hose from the radiator to the engine off at the engine side of the hose, and the thermostat will be right there. change it, and you might wanna change the gasket too, then bolt the hose back on the engine and fill your radiator back up with coolant.