Captian!! We have a coolant leak!!

[ZooJunkie]

Sigh. Sometimes when you start working on repairs your gut feeling says to leave it alone till have you all the parts. While, my Zoo developed a coolant leak in one of the coolant pipes going to the oil cooler. Well, smarty pants (me) decided to drain the water I had filled previously so I could drive home last week. Well, the plastic drain plug doesn't have a long life expectancy. It was broken in half and while I attempted to unscrew it, the top most part of the plug came out, leaving the shaft in the drain hole. YEAH!!

So now instead of just dripping water, it's pouring water! "When it rains, it pours." comes to mind. Oh well. Now I have to remove the radiator to access the drain hole so I can extract the drain hole plug shaft, and fix my pipe. At least I'll have easy access to the coolant pipe now.

:Mechanic:

 

[Grim Reaper]

Sigh. Sometimes when you start working on repairs your gut feeling says to leave it alone till have you all the parts. While, my Zoo developed a coolant leak in one of the coolant pipes going to the oil cooler. Well, smarty pants (me) decided to drain the water I had filled previously so I could drive home last week. Well, the plastic drain plug doesn't have a long life expectancy. It was broken in half and while I attempted to unscrew it, the top most part of the plug came out, leaving the shaft in the drain hole. YEAH!!

So now instead of just dripping water, it's pouring water! "When it rains, it pours." comes to mind. Oh well. Now I have to remove the radiator to access the drain hole so I can extract the drain hole plug shaft, and fix my pipe. At least I'll have easy access to the coolant pipe now.

:Mechanic:

Dooohhhhhh! I hate when that happens! Its like pulling on that little piece of skin on your cuticle and pretty soon its hanging from your chin!


Decided to help mom out one time and do the 60K timing belt change on Her VW Jetta and while I was in there put on a water pump. So nearly 3 days later I finished.

Some of the highlights of the fun included:

Drilling out the three stripped out Alen head bolts out of the end of the crank that hold the crank pulley on.

Breaking 6 of the 10 4mm bolt that hold the water pump on.

Too remove the water pump house requires removing the power steering pump, the radiator, the Alternator, the A/C compressor to get the bracket off that retains the pump housing.

I did find the little leak that the car always had that the dealer never could find. It was the O ring on the back of the water pump housing.

 

[ZooJunkie]

Yah, I hate those days.

 

[Incusus]

That is EXACTLY why I don't own my Eclipse anymore. I didn't mind working on it but every little thing turned into a huge deal (replaced exhaust gasket=broken exhaust manifold bolts=pulled head to drill out & retap, etc)

Love the car, hated the complications during surgery

 

[ZooJunkie]

Fixed. The leak? It was the same drain plug that was causing the leak. Well, at least it was easy and cheap to repair. I did find a new oil leak though that's not very good. It's leaking onto my exhaust header.

 

[Incusus]

Fixed. The leak? It was the same drain plug that was causing the leak. Well, at least it was easy and cheap to repair. I did find a new oil leak though that's not very good. It's leaking onto my exhaust header.

glad you found the coolant leak and it was an easy one.

Wheres this oil coming from? valve cover gasket above the header?

 

[ZooJunkie]

glad you found the coolant leak and it was an easy one.

Wheres this oil coming from? valve cover gasket above the header?

Yah, looks like the valve cover on the left side of the engine. Dang. That's a pita to replace.

 

[Martyn]

Just got this in a newsletter from Frogs Island 4X4. Coolant leak in Moroccan desert. At this moment I think they all wanted to be "Beamed up".

Repairs in the bush…… never think it won’t ever happen to you! Having painstakingly prepared my Land Cruiser for a trip to Morocco with Onelife Adventure www.onelifeadventure.co.uk in March this year I was confident that nothing could go wrong, I mean I checked and double checked everything. The 80 series performed faultlessly and was a pleasure to drive both on and off road until it all went pear shaped. Whilst exploring the sand dunes close to the Algerian border I heard a faint crack followed by the unmistakable Chinese takeaway smell of hot antifreeze.
The cooling system fan somehow connected with the fan cowl and fed a chunk of plastic straight through the radiator. We stared at it for a few moments wondering if we should bodge it and take a chance or remove the rad and fix it properly. We were as far away from civilization as we could be, temperature was in the mid 30s (Centigrade) and we had a long way to go and I didn’t fancy continually topping up the cooling system for the next 10 days so Paul and I got stuck in. We removed the radiator and inspected the damage, 15 capillary tubes were damaged and required soldering. I cleaned and crimped the tubes and wire brushed as much of the paint away so the solder would work properly. After what seemed like ages and a few test runs filling the rad with water and checking for leaks I was happy I’d done enough. With the radiator back in the car and full of water we added a can of Radweld and checked for leaks, I guess I wasn’t surprised to see a fine jet of water squirting from the repaired area but it soon stopped as the Radweld did its job, what brilliant stuff! I checked the water level regularly and the level remained constant with no leaks for the next 1500miles. Bear in mind if your vehicle has an alloy radiator Radweld is your only hope, make sure you have a can in your spares kit.

 

[ZooJunkie]

Good advice! Too bad the hole in my radiator (broken drain plug), is about 1/4 inch in diameter. I doubt even Radweld could seal that hole!