85fortheDrive

Figures.
I just successfully bled the brakes and wanted to take the car to work today. Pull out of the garage this morning and the floor was clean. Drove 30 miles to work and then returned to the car four hours later to find a river of coolant beneath it. I'm guessing 8 oz of fluid.

Drove her home and had a local Lube Pros pal confirm that it is radiator fluid that is leaking, though he could not pinpoint the source.

Before I throw the OB up on jacks again, I'm looking for some suggestions. Most importantly, I want to know if this might signal the demise of the water pump.

Thanks as always.

RyanPerrella

i would check all your hoses first, try the smaller ones going to and front he reservior, those are often never replaced.

When the pump on my old engine was leaking you could see coolant coming from around the pulley at about 2-3 o'clock.

could be any number of place its coming from, does it come from the front or rear of the engine?

Bill Ball

Depends on where it is dripping. If it is the WP, the drip in down the front of the block, then off the front of oil pan. So, determine the general vicinity of the drip: front of block or rear, left or right, or under the radiator. If you still have the bellypan on, this can be harder to determine, but you should be able to get some idea from where it is pooling on the ground. If it's towards the rear of the motor, it's not the WP, but one of 5 or 6 other sources. Let us know the general location and we can take it from there.

85fortheDrive

Seems to be coming from the front of the engine. There is no coolant on the belly pan as far as I can tell and none on the spoiler. Therefore, I don't suspect the radiator itself.

Thanks Ryan.

Bill, I'll go have a closer look at the drip location. When the engine cools down, I'll pull the belly pan and see where the drip is coming from. Gracias.

Bill Ball

Front of the motor could be one of the hoses on the water bridge too. They are above the WP. There are a couple of smaller hoses there as well as the main radiator hoses. Look them over and make sure all the hose clamps are snug.

Imo000

Its' only bliker fluid, so don't worry about it! j/k

RyanPerrella

lets hope not, that stuff is sold out, you cant get it anywhere in the states that i know of!

Bill Ball

STP still makes it.

85fortheDrive

Okay so I get the front of the car up on jacks - there is no dripping of coolant whatsoever. ThenI start the car, engage the A/C, and let the car run for five minutes (still up on jacks). No dripping.

Turn the car off and within a minute, there is massive dripping coming from both sides of the oil pan. Due to the clustered nature of pumps around it and its contoured shape, the oil pan won't let me see up to the source of the leak.

I'm including a photo. None of the hoses appear to be loose. Looking from the top down in the engine bay, everything seems perfect. Obviously it's not.

Getting a bit worried here....

Big Dave

When's the last time you changed your water pump?

LarryM

I wished it would be as easy as just tightening the right and left side block water jacket bolts.


Good luck

85fortheDrive

As I'm not the original owner, I'm not sure when the last time was that the TB and WP were replaced. That thought has occurred to me, for sure.

BTW, nice meeting you at SIH, Dave.

While I know my way around motor mounts and oil pans, I have never worked with the water pump. I've consulted the ever-helpful WSM but still don't know exactly where the water pump and its hoses are. Where are the water jacket bolts? Accessible from the top of the engine bay? From beneath?

Continued thanks.

WICruiser

There are 2 water jacket bolts on the block, one on each side. They are a little hard to find the first time but they are bolts into the side of the block with nothing attached to them above the oil pan about mid way front to back if I recall correctly.

There are several hoses that attach to the thermostat housing/coolant cross over bridge that goes from one head to the other. Ther larger one is easy to see but the two smaller ones are very hard because they are buried under things. In my case there was a puddle of coolant where the cross over connects to the block (center of the cross over - large o ring seal you can not see other than the chamfer in the top of the block) that was due to one of the smaller hoses failing near the connection.

The water pump is about center on the front of the engine behind the timing belt covers. If the coolant is coming out from around the crank pulley or bottom of the timing belt covers and it is dry above it is probably a water pump.

If you do not have the maintenance history to know when the last TB/WP repalcement was done it is a good idea to have it done (or do it yourself) sooner than later because TB failure can get very expensive.

Let us know what you find.

Mrmerlin

about the easiest way to tell if the WP is leaking is to rinse off the engine start engine with the car on the floor look at the front of the engine between the radiator and engine, pay careful attention to the front top of the oil pan, the coolant will be running down looking at it from the top past the driverside of the crankshaft pulley

3000teeth

The alternator comes out with two bolts. You might be able to see what's going on if take it off.

Also, nice text effects.