So the story goes.... I have a 91 Maxima SE with 290,000K.

Water pump began making noises last week before completely failing on the way to work. I limped her home and began the repair in my driveway.

I picked up the 50$ pump and timing belt (seeing I'm there already) and 12 hours of crawling around skinning knuckles, I finally have the waterpump off.

Now the problem is that there were 6 blades on this impeller. There are now ZERO, as all have broken off. ONLY FOUR PIECES have shown themselves! This means that 2 chunks of steel (approx 1/2" x 1/2" 'L' shaped pieces) are floating around my coolant system. I have fished with wire and poured water through every coolant hose and port I can find and the pieces are still missing.

I cant imagine that the pieces will circulate throughout the coolant system, so I shouldn't have to worry about the pieces jamming and wrecking the new water pump.

My question is;Where might these pieces collect? Could they get to the Radiator?Will it harm the engine if I just put er back together and run it?Any help thoughts or suggestions greatly appreciated!

I would check the radiator. You could probably get one of those magnetic bendy things in there and get to it if it is there.

They shouldn't really be able to get anywhere that would harm the engine... but there's always a chance that they could clog a coolant passage, which might cause some issues. I bet they are in the radiator though if you've flushed everything else with no luck.

Thanks for the comments. I will try looking in the rad tonight.