Saw a puddle on the ground and took a quick look underneath the truck, looks like its coming from somewhere up behind the engine oil pan. Some of the coolant is dripping onto the driver side cat. This must mean the back side of the head gasket finally failed correct? I got a new quote from a guy locally who will do the work for around $1,000 plus $300 ish to get the heads machined at a machine shop. But wont be able to do any of this for over a month in a half. What are my options right now? So far shes not overheating. Is there anything like stop leak I can find at advanced auto parts to temporary patch the leak? I already plan on replacing the head gaskets, radiator, cooling hoses, expansion tank etc soon so I just need a patch up for now. Better now then in April when Im cross country.

 

first pressure test it to make sure it is a head gasket, could be a freeze plug, hose ect.
then if you are going to use any of that miracle crap be sure to by-pass your heater core,
unless of course you fell like replacing that also.
and most importantly read how you get it out of your system when you have fixed the leak.
jmho
should have taken me up on the offer.

 

I sent you a PM and you never responded. If you are still willing to help with the HG then id be glad to work with you instead. Im at work right now and plan on stopping by advanced auto parts after work. Do they have anything cheap to pressure test the HG? and how do i bypass the heater core? Could we talk on the phone today after 5pm?

 

did a quick google search for the freeze plug and could not find any diagrams for its location. Is it accessible from underneath the truck or do i need to remove a bunch of parts? Im not certain where all the cooling hoses run but i doubt a cooling hose is the problem because the leak appears to be coming from the back of the engine, and leaks on the driver cat.

 

I believe there are multiple freeze plugs, but thats only one possible cause. How much coolant is it? How low is your expansion tank? It could be the head gasket. Can you feel around back there? Sure its not the intake heater plate and not running down the valve cover?

 

UPDATE: Did not get a chance to pop the hood before my first post so had to wait until after I clocked out from work. The expansion tank is not empty as I assumed it would be, maybe about an inch or so below the fill line. The top of the driver side valve cover is wet but does not look to be green, and it looks like the wet substance reaches to the back side of the cover. I also noticed a couple droplets of coolant on the side of the valve cover again on the drivers side. So it seems that the leak may be coming from somewhere near the top of then engine. Recently I replaced the throttle body heater plate and gasket with a kit from RN so I doubt that component has failed. Any thoughts?

I dont know anything about the heater core but looking at the RN diagram of the cooling system I noticed that the heater core must be somewhere behind the engine, could my core be leaking onto the top of the valve covers? Is it possible that one of the rubber hoses that connects to the throttle body heater plate is bad?

Im going to wide the top of the valve cover dry and examine it again tomorrow to verify that the leak is indeed coming from this area. Ill post my findings.

 

Check the heater plate. Mine kept leaking at the hoses. I ended up trying different clamps until I found ones that could get tight enough. At the small diameter they need to get to, they tend to come apart when they get torqued.


Mine was leaking before I did the head gaskets. I couldn't tell for sure if it was the hoses or the plate when I pulled the engine apart so I bough the heater kit. When I took the plate off, it was the original one and had an o-ring to seal it to the throttle body instead of a gasket. Not sure if they're all like that or just the '04's but that thing was not leaking at all. It was the hoses all along. They leaked after I finished the head gaskets too. Scared the hell out of me when I smelled coolant after I put the truck back together.


If you can't get the leak to stop you can bypass the plate for now and see if it stops.

 

I will give it a shot tomorrow, thanks much. If it turns out not to be the heater plate or hoses connected to the heater plate im prepared to use a temp solution.... headgasket repair in a bottle. Just pours into the radiator. Drow said something about bypassing the heater core before adding any stop leak or repair fluid, so how do I do that? I dont know anything about the heater core and i dont want to risk ruining it to.

 

to bypass heater core = unplug the 2 little hoses, going to the hard lines, headed to firewall/ heater core. use a piece of horseshoed pipe and connect together or just put plugs in them.


while searching for leaks, I love the uv dyes....I use it for any and every leak. it makes detection much simpler. I use interdynamics because they sell it at o'rielly.

 

Had the exact same issue with mine, post HG repair. Throttle body heater hoses leaking all over the driver's valve cover and running down onto the drivers side primary o2 sensor. Tiny hose clamps strip out before they get tight enough to seal. The hoses are sized poorly in relation to the size of the TB heater fittings, or mine seemed that way.