Coolant Issue

[borahshadow]

So I'm loosing lots of coolant... First thought was water pump. I hadn't really noticed any puddles where I normally park so my second thought was intake manifold gasket (again) But after checking the oil on every cold start and after the engine ran for about a minute everyday for the next couple of days my oil didn't seem to be growing nor was there any white/gray foam in the oil once it had been started for a minute. Third thought was water pump or a bad hose. By now it is loosing a lot and I am getting a puddle right under the engine where I park.

I thought I had it narrowed to a water pump after all of this but then I looked at my maintenance log and my water pump was replaced only 23k ago... I've got 187k on the odometer fyi. I guess I could use a couple of pointers in my quest to pin point the issue. I'm thinking it must be a hose or something but I don't know the best way to find that out. There is lots of coolant dripping from the frame and stuff right under the front of the engine but I can't see one particular spot it looks like it could be coming from. Maybe I just have a really premature water pump failure.

 

[DRAGGIN95]

It could be a hose, water pump, intake gasket, freeze plug, temp seder, etc. without actually looking at it, it's going to be hard to tell.

 

[Sepiroth]

Like anyone who has a coolant leak, I tell them this. Youre going to have to have to coolant system pressure tested, both on a cold engine and a hot engine. This is really the only way, you're going to determine what leak/leaks you have, ok.

 

[RHamill]

Probably intake gasket, that's what mine was, sounds like the same symptoms, I couldnt find any leaks, until I looked all over my frame and steering linkage.

 

[borahshadow]

well I had my dad look at it and he said that he couldn't see one particular spot that was a sure sign of a leak as there was coolant all over most everything. He said it looked especially wet around the water pump. Turns out when my mechanic replaced the pump 23k ago he got a pump with a lifetime warranty (aka the proper thing to do) so we picked up a water pump since it won't cost us anything but time to replace it.

Like I said I don't think it's the intake gasket since we've already replaced that twice and the second time was with an upgraded gasket that is supposed to fix the problem. Hopefully it will just be the water pump.

How does one go about pressure testing a coolant system? does it take special equipment?

 

[Sepiroth]

It takes a coolant pressure tester.

Now you might get lucky and have a shop that will maybe charge you 15 bucks or so to put the tester on it and see where the leak is coming from.