I have a coolant leak that starts on the front passenger side of the car so i thought it might be the over flow tank leaking. So i put the car on stands and took the undertray off and started it again and after it leaks from the passanger side for a few minutes the whole top of the rad seams to start leaking, not just from near the overflow. The upper rad hose isnt leaking either, a lot of coolant drips from the intake duct in the opening of the front bumper. I think the rad might be the original but i really have no idea, is this common for the top of an old rad to start leaking? Sorry im a bit of a so any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

oh and yes i did search and scanned through quite a lot of threads but couldnt find what i was looking for. I dont really have time to read every post in the search section.

 

The end tanks on the stock radiator are plastic. It's not common for the plastic to get brittle from hot under-hood temps and crack.

 

any idea why it would be leaking all along the top of the rad? maybe i missed something when i was looking. any suggestions
one more thing, why is the overflow tank not shown in the service manual?

 

Drain the coolant
Pull the radiator out
Inspect the radiator

Look for cracks/splits in the plastic or punctures of the core

 

so when i had the car running today it started to leak from all over the bottom again but this time there was a stream coming from the drivers side right where the power steering line go into the cooler. when the fans turn on it seams to slow the leak down to a drip, maybe the fan is just blowing the coolant around and making it look like the leak has slowed i thought. so i filled up with distilled water and went for a test drive to the store, when i came out there was no coolant puddle under the car like i expected, so i drove around for like 15 minutes stoping periodically to look for the leak but it wasnt leaking anymore,..... weird. any thoughts?
oh thanks for the advice so far mahjik

 

nevermind now the coolant is streaming out again what is going on???? is it my overflow?