i was just wondering... how do you know when you have bad coolant seals... is there anything specifically to look for or that always happens?

 

HUGE puffs of white smoke out of the exhaust. Plus the sweet smell of coolant would also be a give away. Unpleasant to say the least.. but it happens.

 

it is well documented in the FAQ thread stickied in this forum. Go check it out.

 

Alot of threads on the subject, but here's what I can think of off the top of my head:
*White smoke (steam) on start-up.
*Stumble or miss on start-up that goes away.
*Over-pressurized cooling system.
*Loosing coolant with no apparent leak. It's burned in the combustion chamber.
*Over-flow bottle overflows...coolant goes in but doesn't come out as the system cools down... due to loss of vacuum.
*Wet spark plugs or plugs that looked like they've been steam cleaned.
*My nice fresh green coolant seems to discolor a bit over time with a brown tint.


I experienced nearly all these symtoms, to one degree or another. I think it varies from engine to engine depending on the location and severity of the failure. If you need confirmation, pressure test your cooling system and/or have the coolant tested for the presence of hydrocarbons. In your search you'll also see mention of the champaign or bubble test.

 

The white smoke on start up (NOT to be confused with normal condensation burn-off!) is not necessarily evident in bad coolant seal cases. I had bad seals and the ONLY symptom I had was overpressurizing of the coolant system.
You can also do the 'champagne bubble' test, with a cold engine pop off your fill cap and then start the engine and watch for bubbles coming up that indicate combustion gases/pressure bypassing the coolant seals.

Sgtblue has good stuff in the earlier post.

 

i could really tell on my first FD because the exhaust would smell of sweet burning antifreeze when i started it...