Milano water pump noises

[Will Owen <nashwill912@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yo, gang -

My wife, whose car the Milano actually is, has established an enviable track record as
the one who catches on to its moods and crochets long before I have the barest clue. The
other day she'd been saying that it was making a Funny Chugging Noise, and as I had
heard nothing of the sort I was ignoring her, when suddenly she punched the mute button
on the radio and said, "NOW do you hear it?" Well, yeah, there was a sort of chook chook
chook at idle, but nothing you could call menacing...then this morning, as I was warming
it up, I heard a combination of chugging and snorting that got my attention. Under the
hood, then, with a chock at one back wheel (because we don't set the handbrake any more,
which will be addressed at another time) and the engine running. The snorting was from
the steering reservoir, which although it had gotten its hoses and things replaced over
the past year still needs topping up once every couple of months...but the chugging,
grinding noise was most definitely from the water pump. It was making some very
unmistakeable I'm Running Out Of Bearings noises.

Now, I cannot remember whether we replaced that pump during the Great Coolant Crisis of
1999, but all that is apparently moot. It's obviously getting crunchy, and will need to
be replaced shortly. The question is, how shortly? I know that some cars I've had could
run around with a noisy pump for a year or so, but our last BMW 2002 went from squeal to
full lockup in about half an hour. Question to the assembled brethren: can I wait until
we get paid this weekend, or should we park it and have it towed to the vet's?

Will
--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided