Previous owner's cheap water pump with a destroyed prop. Pieces of which are now in the engine block and cant be removed. Should I be concerned?

My 2004 GX 470 that I've owned for 1 month started to overheat last week. After a day of eliminating the thermostat, radiator, sensors/relay, heater core, I found this (there was enough of the prop left that it would still move coolant in the top of the radiator). Now all the blade pieces are in the engine block somewhere and won't come out after flushing.

Should I be overly concerned??

 

Sorry to hear what happen here. I am not an expert but I think that could cause persistent over heating issue in future. Not sure how you could remove the pieces without disassembling the engine block.

 

That sucks. If the pieces aren't coming out from flushing/back flushing, they aren't likely to move during normal operation either.

You can't "disassemble" the engine block to access the coolant passages, FYI.

 

Are you sure they broke off? When this happens to BMWs the blades just gradually dissolve.

Naturally, when you put the correct pump back on, be sure to use the correct Toyota-brand coolant mix.

Chip H.

 

We retrieved a few larger pieces still in the housing. After putting it back together, a warm-up & refill, and quick test drive, it ran well and the temp leveled perfectly. So I cleaned the engine (I hate the smell of antifreeze.......reminds me of blown head gaskets) and went on a 30-40 mile drive and it ran/cooled perfectly. It's going to take me a few weeks to gain confidence in it again. I'll probably wait a month and pull a few hoses and see if any material from the blades is in them.

 

Ahh. Well, hopefully they won't cause any hotspots in the block. They'll almost certainly get stopped in the radiator end-caps but there's probably enough cooling capacity in there so it won't cause any problems.

Chip H.

 

From what I know it should dissolve in the coolant as it tends to become acidic when temperature rises. Otherwise it would just get stuck at the radiator. I recently did my timing belt a couple weeks back, and only realized the bottom rubber piece of the radiator cap broke off for god knows how long. Did a complete coolant flush, and found some dissolved and tiny pieces of what looked like rubber.

 

Coolant can turn acidic if it gets old, but it should never eat away the water pump impeller!