Update: found my leak, or maybe it found me

[snampro]

first post here:

Ahhh, the sweet smell...

After going over the car last night and tightening the thermostat bolts I put it back together and took it out for a shake-down run. I drove around to let the car warm up for about 5 minutes, slowed to about 5mph and did a full throttle pull through first and second gears. No smell. Drove another mile and did a full throttle pull all the way through second, now its smelling, and what's this? white smoke, just a little, rolling over the windshield. The leak was small but wasn't active, so I limped home (about 3 miles) and pulled in my garage...

Holy crap, there was visible antifreeze sprayed from the rear of the engine from the center to the right side of the engine. I started ripping everything apart and it looks like its coming from the small 3 inch hose that comes off the thermostat housing and goes to the right side, most likely spraying out through one of those old style hose clamps. (see pic below)


The end of the hose was a little green (you can see it in the second pic). Nothing behind it had any spray and its pointed in the correct direction to yield the spray I found. I think I'm just going to go buy a new screw hose clamp and see if that fixes it.

I looked over the surrounding heater hoses and couldn't find any problems with them, so I can't see anything else that would cause this...





Here's some pics of the standing coolant.

Looking between the right exhaust manifold and the HVAC box



Just behind cylinder #10



looking at the right coil and plug wires



So...after dinner I'm heading to the part store to buy a hose clamp...we'll see if that fixes things.

And Greg 99ACR, you were right about the crappy stock hose clamps, it just happened in a different place!

[Steve-Indy]

Don't be surprised if your new clamp cuts thru that OLD and TIRED LOOKING hose.

Looks to me like a GREAT time to purchase a set of Gen I silicone radiator hoses (5) from Sean Roe.

[snampro]

seems to have fixed it, took it out and did a few hard pulls, nothing in the cabin, no smoke and no fluid. the engine area still smells like coolant, but I'm sure thats because of the earlier spill, its certainly not as strong as it was when I found the leak.

[snampro]

Don't be surprised if your new clamp cuts thru that OLD and TIRED LOOKING hose.

Looks to me like a GREAT time to purchase a set of Gen I silicone radiator hoses (5) from Sean Roe.

yeap, that was in the winter plans before any of this happened. new radiator, fan, hoses thermostat and more. now that I've been in that area behind the engine with everything removed I have most of the part numbers so I can order all new heater hoses (which don't come with Roe's kit).

[got one]

Is there any full on cooling hose kit? Just curious?

[Steve-Indy]

Heater hoses not a bad idea either...though, I have seen less problems with them (except on later Gen II's with the clamps that tend to slide off of the water valve)...noting that with equal pressures in the system, one might expect the heater hoses to be less inclined to rupture with their smaller diameter giving a lower wall tension via the Laplace Law concept(at least, as my poor old mind tries to recall the facts).

[snampro]

the best I've found is roe's 5-piece kit, but that is missing ALL the heater hoses

[Steve-Indy]

snampro, when I discussed the issue of heater hoses with Sean around 4-5 years ago(as he was starting to sell the radiator hose kits)he told me that heater hoses rarely ruptured (not to be confused with clamp "cut-thru"), and therefore, he did not feel there would be a need or demand for making silicone heater hoses as part of his kit ...at least at that time. I do keep a set of Gen I and Gen II hoses on hand, but have yet to use them as our's look good so far.

Seems to me that SVS started to market a radiator/heater hose kit in matching colors a while back...don't know if they carried thru with it, however.

[Ron]

I love Google:

LaPlace's Law
The larger the vessel radius, the larger the wall tension required to withstand a given internal fluid pressure.




For a given vessel radius and internal pressure, a spherical vessel will have half the wall tension of a cylindrical vessel.

[Newport Viper]

Thanks for all your work on these posts. I am sure it will help others!

[2001 GTS]

Wow...looks exactly like my problem, sprayed from that hose onto the right rear of the engine bay, the coolant would then start smoking when it hit the hot engine or exhaust, making quite a scene in traffic. Thanks for the find!

Steve

[snampro]

no problem. If you don't want to remove your hoses you can just slide the old clamp back and loop the new screw clamp around the hose. I did this because I'm planning to replace all my hoses soon and didn't want to mess with removing the hose now.

[Steve-Indy]

DELETED...covered in newer thread.