Greetings all. May have the early signs of some serious badness.

A few days ago as I was helping my my wife unload the car after a run, I heard a Poomph...trickle trickle. Thought we blew a hose. Was close, one popped off. The one on the right side of the radiator that comes up off that plastic housing (thermostat?). Put that back on and reclamped it, filled her up and ran it a while looking for leaks and found nothing. I assumed it just worked itsaelf loose over time.

FF a couple of days and she call from the Dr. Office to let me know that the light is on and there is steam coming out from under the hood. I grabbed all the coolant I had and went over there figuring that hose popped off again, but no she is just low. : (. Topped her off to the tune of litttle over a galllon. Started it up and let her come back to the midrange and followed her home. She said the needle went up once then came back down (air pocket around the guage I assume) I put some cardboard underneath and found no leaks of anyt kind. I did not note any whiteness in the exhaust as is usual with a head gasket leak either. Also no oil in the coolant to be seen.

Plan -
1. Put UV dye in the coolant and pressurize the system and check for leaks. How does one pressurize the system? All the tooling I am aware of is made for american radiator caps.
2. Pull spark plugs and pray I don't find a clean one!

Any other suggestions?

 

Slow down!!
First, when was the coolant last changed, along with the t/stat as well as having the upper hose replaced to fix the bleed screw issue?
Did you bleed the coolant system after loosing coolant?
You might want to send me your tele number so I can walk you thru all that needs to be checked, there is a good chance you have a blown head gasket.

 

I think I still have your number from last time.

Not sure about last coolant change - 1 1/2 plus years. It looks pretty clean though.

Bleed screw issue?

I did not bleed the system other than squeeaing the hose to try and make sure that there was no air in it.

I am afraid of the head gasket too.

 

I had a slow leak as well. My headgaskets were done 3 mos ago. After pressure testing I found small leaks from the hoses coming out of the expansion tank-fixed it, but after a month or so it happened again. Just the other day, found leak from left lower corner of radiator, never a big leak or drops noted in garage, but was able to visibly see it with plastic cover above radiator removed. Good luck.