Well, after nearly a year, the old girl's getting a touch cranky.

I replaced a water pump, regular readers will recall, after its bearings died and it ate my serp. Not too long later, I replaced the radiator, and after that, it was running pretty decent; I needed to top the coolant maybe every other month.

Recently, I developed a leak on what my mech described as some coolant passthrough fitting under the throttle body; is that the valley pan of which I read?

He replaced the unit and its gasket, and I went about 6 weeks and had to top off again, and then today...

today I pulled up to a building and shut down, and heard sizzling. Opened the hood, and I had *something* dripping down from the left-rear of the engine onto the O2 sensor and pipe.

Since I wasn't overcome by clouds of grey smoke, I assume this was coolant, though I do have a slight oil leak in that neighborhood as well, that's getting the rearmost spark plug boot wet.

Anyone care to speculate on the most likely candidate?

I guess I'm almost hoping for oil, cause that could be valve cover/gasket, whereas coolant has a fairly high likelihood of being head gaskets, which I cannot *afford* to deal with just now, being unemployed.

I see that the gasket kit is only about the $180 I had expected, but I have neither sufficient tools nor experience to pull heads without an elmer.

I'm going to spray clean the engine tonight; I'll try and nail down tighter where the leak is coming from... but when I let it cool today and topped it off, the leak did not recur -- I infer that it's a leak that only blows under the additional overpressure of low coolant, which might make it harder to spot (I don't have a pressure tester; can you borrow those from Autozone?).

 

Time for head gaskets. By the way, that clue, of adding coolant every other month should have been looked into long before now.

 

Oh yeah; *that's* why I don't come here much.

I won't bother, Mike, to call your attention to "not equipped to do it myself", "unemployed", and "can't afford to pay someone for a $1500 gasket job"; if you didn't read them the first time, it won't be productive.

Thanks, though.

 

I'm not sure sure what reply you are looking for if Mike's one is not to your liking.
Maybe sprinkle the engine with some Pixie dust and the problem will go away?
Anyways, get some coolant leak dye from an auto store and it will highlight the leak area.

 

"Well, I can understand how it sucks to be in that situation, but you're likely gonna find out you really do need gaskets" would be a starter.

Followed by your leak dye suggestion; I'd forgotten about that stuff, thanks.

See? A helpful response that doesn't amount to "I didn't really bother to read your posting". It *is* possible.

 

If you haven't already:

Check all of your hose clamps to make sure they are tight and/or replace them with worm clamps. I had the "missing coolant mystery" until one day I noticed one of the crappy stock clamps had failed and it was dripping out slowly.

Also tighten down your valve covers, I had a decent amount of oil seeping out ,exactly where you are describing, when I bought the truck, switched over to synthetic oil, tightened down the valve covers, pressure washed the engine and voila! Gone!

"Recently, I developed a leak on what my mech described as some coolant passthrough fitting under the throttle body; is that the valley pan of which I read?"

--->are you talking about the throttle body heater plate & gasket???? That is a pretty "routine" fix for DII's so I wouldn't worry too much about that.

P.S. - Make sure you check for coupons for pixie dust, it is expensive! Good luck finding your solution

 

I did in fact mean that heater plate, Rob, yes; thanks.

I'll go over all the hoses and clamps again, and I'm going to pressure clean the engine and put in some dye, and I'll see what I get.

Is that dye generally UV sensitive? Cause I have a blacklight fluorescent handy...

And I have pixie dust in stock, as it happens; bought a bulk package while I was still working. :-)

 

www.biolifeplasma.com

It ain't much but its money.

 

Heh. No, I was at the last place 2 1/2 years; I've got some unemployment yet. I'm trying to land my ex-consulting GC some more clients, if I can generate some work for them, they'll let me do it. :-)

 

I agree with the head gaskets being a definite possibility, and strongly agree with either the coolant dye, or a pressure test. The sizzle on the exhaust? My vehicle has a sizzle from drips on the exhaust every night after I pull in the garage, but it is water from the A/C evaporator dripping onto the catalytic converter, which is perfectly normal.

I did not intend that sizzle comment to be smart assed in any way, just factual. I don't think any auto parts stores rent a pressure test kit, as there would be too many adapters to fit different vehicles, but the dye is cheap, and a black light is useful when using the dye. Tracerline dye part # TP-3900-0601 for the small bottles.