DaedelGT

Noticed some light white smoke from under the hood today while on 1960 in Houston.

Got it home, and it still smoked a whee bit from some unidentifiable place under the hood. Took things apart and didn't see any leaks, but found the double throttle vacuum hose disconnected (damn dealers).

Cooled down, and I checked the coolant level. Didn't see any in the filler neck, so I dumped a bunch of distilled water in there (1/4 gallon) and filled up the overfill tank. I then turned it on, and out of curiosity, I opened the cap, and guess what graced my eyes.

Champagne Bubbles. Noooooooo! Does this sound like an O-Ring failure to anyone? No smoke from the tailpipe as far as I can tell.

Car has never overheated since I have had it.

dubulup

if there are bubbles...thats definitely hydro-carbons (exhaust).

sorry.

DaedelGT

Yeah, I thought so. Oh well.

1stand3rd

Low coolant light never came on?

DaedelGT

It did once when I had let the car sit for a few days, working on my FPR and FPD, but for that I removed the TB coolant hoses and I know I had air bubble issues.

It also came on today after I fuxed around with the coolant rad cap. That's mostly the reason I filled it up, although I see I forgot to mention that.

Actually, it was probably more like 1/8 of a gallon, not 1/4.

Street King

Ok, what if there is a leak in a hose some where drawing in air, wouldn't these create some bubbles also? Are we talking a lot of bubbles here are a few here and there?

Seems to me if there is visible smoke then it has to come from somewhere leaking it outside of the engine. Some coolant may be leaking on to a hot exhaust part causing the smoke. It might be the O ring seals or it might not be. Just be sure to check every 10-20 dollar part(includes caps and hoses) before you cough up a 2g part, know what I mean?

If there is combustion in your coolant, it should pressurize it and send some shooting out of your coolant tank also as a sign. Still if it shoots out the coolant tank, doesn't always mean its combustion, just 1 of the many reasons it will do it.

If worse comes to worse, there is always block weld, which a lot of people have had success with it. It's a bandaid so you can save up for that rebuild if need be.

DaedelGT

Oh, don't worry, I'll check everything I can think of before going for the long stretch. I just can't figure out where this smoke is coming from. At one point it was coming from down by the turbos, and later I noticed it come from by the TB.

I'm also lead to believe that it isn't a hose because I have yet to find a drop of coolant on the ground, indicitive of a leak somewhere.

This is the first time I have seen the champagne bubbles. Usually I'm dumb and (almost) open the cap when the engine is too hot, and the normal green coolant shoots out. Today when I did the same, the bubbles themselves came out, not just straight coolant.


That aside, I'm out for a few days of river rampaging. Feel free to reply to my thread, or hijack it, or forget it j/k Bye!

spurvo

Watch out for leaking turbo coolant hoses. They will leak on the turbo hard line, where it just lets a little trail of built up coolant track down the pipe. I'm not being clear. The upper coolant hose attaches to the hard line on the turbo, and coolant can leak from that spot and run down the backside of that line, making it very hard to see the leak. Make sure you aren't leaking there by pulling the airpump and getting your finger back in there. Hard to do, but this location likes to leak. Might even be the source of bubbles due to localized boiling in that spot. Still, bubbles equaled uh-oh for me...

pomanferrari

iTrader: (1)

I've gone through 2 engines due to o-ring failure.

1st engine. Smoke/steam near the turbo area. Wooshing sound in glovebox. Hard to start then finally WWII style smoke screen.

2nd engine. No smoke any where. sucked coolant down continuously, starting at 4 oz every 40 miles for about 5K and then finally 1.5 gallon over 15 miles. Harder and harder to start. Once running it keeps running except that the coolant consumption rate is greater than I could pour into it.

DaedelGT

Got back from my little getaway and found a puddle of coolant under the car. It's such a small puddle, it must be a really slow leak (maybe 1ft in diameter). I'm hopeful now. Fingers crossed.

r0gu3

My car just started giving me the sweet smelling smoke screens ......

r0gu3

My car just started giving me the sweet smelling smoke screens ......

kyle@insight

I don't see how a minimal coolant leak that caused a 1ft diameter puddle over time could cause you to lose that much coolant overtime. My money is on engine failure. Sorry mang, best of luck

DaedelGT

Hehe I haven't driven it at all since Tuesday morning.

That puddle I found was from that point until Thursday evening. It probably leaked a lot more coolant than that. Even now I think it is leaking, but the rain is making that kind of tough to ascertain.

On Tuesday I filled it to the very very top of the filler neck and filled the overflow bottle to just above full. I can't see it in the filler neck anymore. Would the O-Ring cause coolant to go without the engine running?

Sorry I rambled a bit, but I'm just thinking of things as I go.