it's 4:10am and i have a track event in 3 hours.
unfortunately on my way to meet up with my friends, car over heats to 5 bars.
i pulled into the nearest gas station to see what's wrong. Steam was everywhere when I propped the hood up. It came from the longblock.

The car drove perfectly fine. Idles normal,.. revs normal. no knocking.

I check the hoses that lead to and from the thermostat. I also check the tiny hoses that were part of the cooling system.
It's leaking atleast a cup-full every 5 seconds..
My friend and I disconnected the upper radiator hose and poured pure water to see where it leaks.
It seems like the coolant leak is coming from ABOVE the thermostat housing.
i know it's coolant because i've had a blown up stock radiator before. It smells like burnt corn syrup and the steam residue stays on my glasses.

Where can it be leaking from?

the heater hasn't been fully functioning for the last 2 weeks.. it would be hot at first, but then the air just gets mild and luke. don't know if that has anything to do with this.

I can always take apart the cooling system and the intake manifold to take a closer look.. but i won't have time until later this week. (i will be missing the track event ) Just wanted to gather some ideas on where the coolant could be leaking from..

Again, I isolated the area to near the thermostat housing (somewhere above it.)

 

The heater hasn't been hot due to a lack of coolant and/or a blockage.

Check for leaks around the thermostat housing, IAC Valve, Inlet Manifold and all hoses nearby.

You're just going to have to look really hard, tracing the path of the leak from above the thermostat housing. Placing paper around the aforementioned items may help.

 

krnmike, im sorry about whats going on with your s mines been acting up lately too but not coolant issue though.

try wrapping paper around where you think its leaking from like what loftust suggested.

head gasket? im noob

GL! hope everything works out ok for you.

 

HG would leave a mayonaise type mixture on the oil dipstick and cap. Hopefully thats not the issue. I always keep a couple cheap walmart white king size sheets in a closet just for these situations. Just lay it in the drive way and drive on it. You can then at least see what part the leak is dripping from.

 

-bad way to diagnose but easy-

wait til it heats up. put in pure water. the water will boil. it will shoot out of wherever its leaking from.


tried and true on a camaro, i wouldnt personally do it on my S tho.

check your heater hoses. I doubt a metal part would fail, but a hose will fail easily. make sure you bend them all, specially check near where the clamps are. the clamps put uneven rpessure on the hoses and sometimes when the hoses get old they will spring a leak from right next to the clamp.


-3 old cars, all sprung a leak...two of the 3 were from hoses...one from upper rad. hose, near hose clamp
one from heater hose, near hose clamp.

good luck

 

I had a hose go on my MX5...luckily I found it on a motorway service station and a plumber pulled up next me who gave me some duck tape to stem the leak.

Running the engine to find the leak is a good one though.

Perform a leak down test to ensure it's not the HG. Unlikely, but you'll want to rule it out if you can't find the leak soon.

 

get a pressure tester to pressurize the cooling system without the car running to avoid the buring hot coolant. Looks like you can rent the tool from autozone or any other major car parts store.

check out the link

http://www.autozone.com/in_our_stores/loan...sure_tester.htm

 

^ +1 on the pressure tester. Adding some black light dye to the coolant also will help with finding the leak.

 

problem solved.
hose was ripped