They sound diametrically opposed but as Im trying to press the firewall grommet back in I applied some (not much) pressure to the coolant line in the photo and coolant began to dribble out. Are these clamps so sensitive or might I have a problem with the connection? Never had a drop of anything under the car. Thanks

 

I have limited experience with these lines but my experience is that they tend to start their demise by weeping. I would hazard a guess and say you may have found an impending serious leak and assuming the joints are corroded I would replace them.

 

The metal part of the hose connector should go into the male connector fully. There is a rubber 0 ring on the inside diameter that seals it. However, once you disconnect it, that seal is broken and you have to clean the mating surface to get a good seal. I also tend to use silicon grease, which is inert with rubber o-rings, to get a good seal. Then the wire clip be seated fully to secure it. The way the o-rings works is that the higher the pressure the coolants generate, the better the seal.....up to a point.

 

Thanks for the responses

@systech I don't believe that its a rust or part failure issue. This is the first time I removed the belly pan and everything looks like new. It's a low milage car 17k on the clock. I believe, because I applied pressure to the top side of the coolant line (while installing Numeric cables, a whole other story), that I may have broken the seal.

@HenryPcar The pipe never came out of the fitting. I haven't worked on the cooling system of a pcar yet so im not familiar with these fittings but It's comforting to know that the system seals with pressure. It stopped leaking as soon as I took my arm off the pipe. I'm hoping I don't need to remove and reseal. Thoughts?

 

Two things you can do.

1. Buy a coolant system pressure tester (what, you don't have one?) and apply 15 psi of pressure to it to see if there is any leak. If so, fix it,
2. Drive it, watch it to see if there is any leak, If so, fix it.

 

You may be right but there is (or was) clearly a small leak. You may have simply compromised the seal (probably temporarily) through movement. You could probably just try and run the car and see if the seal is good OR if it was me I would remove the coolant pipe, check the seal and if all OK apply some silicon grease and reconnect. However, draining and burping the cooling system is not without it's issues. If you want to do it yourself, they are some YouTube videos out there to assist if you want to do it yourself.