Hey, I thought I'd ask the collective group a question about my coolant leak, see if anyone had ideas for me.

I lose about a liter of coolant every 500 or so miles, and its a complete mystery to me where i'm losing it from. I have checked all of the lines and have no leaks. when i'm driving i can smell coolant ONLY while pulling a high vacuum, such as engine braking. The coolant is clean, no oil or gas in it. Has anyone had a similar problem? Do I have a vacuum line screwed up? (which i would highly doubt, since i only have 2 lines running to the engine)

Just curious if anyone has had a similar experience, it is stumping me.......Thanks in advance guys..

 

i have a similar problem. i dont know if it is anything like what you have but i have a leak in the bottom seam of the sub zero starting fluid (antifreeze injection) tank. like i said i dono if it helps at all i dont even know if that is a common thing. just thought id throw it out there

 

Coolant seal.

 

Check the coolant hose under the rear of the intake manifold. That hose is difficult to see so that could be the site of the leak. In that case, coolant can pool on top of the engine out of sight and slowly run off the back of the engine--again, out of sight.

 

You might also check the weep hole on the water pump-on the bottom of the pump. It is difficult to see and any water that drips out gets blown away by the bottom pulley and the belts.

 

That was my first thought. Start the car let it run for a half hour, see if there are any drops of coolent under your car.

 

how much would it cost to fix a coolant seal?

 

Yeah, its not the weep hole by the water pump. I changed that out a while back and the new one is fine. I will let it run in place and look for water. Hopefully I will find the leak I figured if it WAS a coolant seal i would see some other symptoms associated with it, such as dirty water or trouble starting... Thanks guys...I'll let you know

 

if u have turbo housings check the coolant port for the turbo.. locate between the LIM and the engine. i spent weeks hunting for a coolant leak and after much searching i found the answer. My NA was rebuilt with TII housings, and they didnt cap the two coolant ports, as a result id draw coolant at high vac as well as see it pooling on the top of the engine but with no obvious sign of where it was coming from.

 

Let it run, can't find any water sitting anywhere.......what a good definitive way to check for a coolant seal failure?

 

Some say you can smell the coolant in your exhaust.

 

Its a rebuild. Price varies.

 

you should really search before starting a thread. . .
But to check for coolant seal failure with out a compression test, which would find our leak any way, the oil dipstick would be "milky", the coolant would smell like exhaust, exhaust like coolant. or you could check for a constant "champagne" flow of bubbles in the filler neck (cap off) while the car is warming up.
good luck bro.