Sporatic engine noise / cooling issue .. Any help would be great!

[Chrisjohnsona4]

Hi there,

I have a 1981 model and have been having an issue on and off for a couple of years that I believe is just getting worse.

Over the past couple of years something manages to rip off the water pump belt while driving. For the one time where I actually managed to find the belt on the road, it looked as it was ripped apart / slightly melted. I have been ordering replacement belts from delorean.com to make sure I am using the correct ones.

I will tell you that before each of the incidents I would notice that my car would make a loud sporadic noise coming from the engine compartment while driving (there is no way to actually replicate the issue, it just happens randomly while driving). It almost sounds as a grinding noise, and when this noise happens, I notice that my temperate gauge will increase up to high levels, then drop back down to normal levels.

Now I am having the issue again and would like to try and resolve it before loosing another water pump belt, or something more serious happens. A part of me thinks that something is seizing up the pulley system for the water pump it's just odd it just happens at the most random times and then will free itself up...(However eventually, I will loose the belt it's just a matter of time). If that is the case, what should I look into replacing, or inspecting?

To begin my troubleshooting I went ahead and followed a guide on this forum and did a coolant flush, installed new coolant.

****I will also note that I have been leaking coolant for some time as well, looks to be around the head gasket , but not exactly sure (the head gaskets were replaced at the DMC dealership in FL 3 years ago along with 20K of other work), you can also see coolant dripping out of the overflow pipe coming out of the coolant bottle.

Would appreciate any help. I drive my car pretty regularly, and to be quite honest this is the only main issue that i've had with my car, since I purchased it 3 years ago. I am sitting at 52K miles.

Thank you!