Car Alternator + Water Pump ~ Changed

7/31/2010 10:53:00 AM Car Care No Comments

i woke up early in the morning preparing myself for a long day at the car workshop and becoz of this i had to apply for an emergency leave as well... the mechanic which our family has known for years came around 9:15am in the morning with a charged up battery to fire up my car, he then use a multi-meter to measure the voltage of the battery that he juz installed into my car...

a healthy car battery will give a measurement of 12V and when the car alternator is running and charging the battery, it should give a measurement of 14V... but the readings on the multimeter stays at 12V and started to drop slowly as the car started to drain off the battery with the airconditioner running... so it's confirmed that the car alternator is gone case... so he asked me to drive my car now to his workshop while he escort me from behind juz in case my car drained off this battery before i could reached his workshop... luckily i managed to get there...

this is the old spoilt alternator...

once arrived, another mechanic which is known as wayar man (ah gou lou) took over as he's in charged of all the electric and electronic stuff of the car... they have ordered the alternator ready for me as i hv rang them up yesterday, so the operation to change the alternator proceed immediately... it took him only 30 minutes to get off the old alternator and fix in the new one... by then my car is up and running again...

the multi-meter is on the car battery once more and this time it measure a healthy 14V meaning the alternator is charging the battery... my new battery yesterday which was 'kong' managed to be salvage and they use a machine to charge it up back to healthy state... luckily, if not i have to foot money for another car battery... zzzz...

old water pump...at the top right, there are coolant residue which indicates leakage...

there is another parts in my car which i always fear that it has wear off... it's the water pump and i know that the consequence if it fails... so i asked the mechanic to have a look and indeed small leakage started to appear on it... the water pump on a Proton Wira is located right above the alternator, so we also notice some coolant residue on top of the alternator... i made a bold decision which is to change it as i do not want to tow my car once again in the future...

the entire timing belt system is out to make way for the water pump... major work...

changing the water pump is a major activity similar to what i witness back then when i had my car clutch plate changed... they have to take off the entire timing belt system to disengaged the water pump... that operation took more than 1 hour... once he has fitted back the entire timing belt system and refilled my car with a fresh bottle of coolant, my car is fired up and they monitored closely to ensure that the new water pump is running and circulating the coolant around the radiator system... after 5-10 minutes, it's confirmed that everything is good...

my new car battery is also fitted back into my car and the readings show a healthy 14V readings... sigh*** finally it's done... and the car bill... :(

• Water Pump : MYR 80
• Radiator Coolant : MYR 28
• Alternator : MYR 580
• Labour Charge : MYR 80
• 5% Government Service Tax : MYR 4.00

this brings to a total of MYR 772.00... sigh***