[Gokuxx4]

Hey guys,
I've got a coolant leak and its a little hard to diagnose. It's dripping heavily once the car gets to operating temp, my mom thought my car was going to explode the other day because of all the coolant burning off of the header collectors. It makes a lot of white smoke, and it's really embarrassing. Its coming from the back passengers side, above the header. It doesn't seem to be the steam pipe, as I just took that off and looked at it and didn't notice a hole In The hose(not OEM steam pipe, it's NPT fittings with rubber hoses that are clamped on). Could it be coming from the head? Is there any other possibility?

 

[Workman]

Dont just check the steam pipe, also check the other hoses as well, It could be just a little pin hole (Like i had) and its running back onto the manifold/header.
Also, Im not sure if these have FREEZE PLUGS or not but if it does it could be that possibly.
I wouldnt recommend this and im not liable but if you grab some safety glasses and some long sleeves with some good car gloves jack it up on stands and be carefull and crank it up. The reason i say that is because you can see whats goin on under there, and be weary of coolant itll start to get very hot within a few minutes. Before the manifolds/headers and coolant get hot you should be able to find where its leaking from or pin point the area.
Hope this helps friend.

 

[Workman]

And im sure if it was the head, DONT hold me to it plz it'd drip directly under the engine bcuz thats where it would run down to. Once again, plz dont hold me to that. Just a suggestion.

 

[Gokuxx4]

Thanks for the response Workman. I think I found it to be the NPT fitting threads where the coolant was leaking from. So I took it off, put some red threadlocker on it, and put it back on. And the saga will continue tomorrow....

 

[Workman]

lol, sweeeeet!
I hope you found it man! ill keep an eye on this thread to make sure.
Let me know if you find it.

 

[ShowNoMercy]

Thanks for the response Workman. I think I found it to be the NPT fitting threads where the coolant was leaking from. So I took it off, put some red threadlocker on it, and put it back on. And the saga will continue tomorrow....

Loctite != thread sealant.

I would take it out and put real sealant on the fittings. Not too much cause the NPT will tighten up due to the type of fitting.

Just be careful, the head is NOT NPT.

 

[Gokuxx4]

I'm getting closer and closer! Looking at shoebox's proper coolant fill method, it says to run the engine with the rad cap off. However, it doesn't specify if I should leave the bleeder screws released or not with the engine running or not, or maybe I read it too quickly and passed over it. Anyways, I first filled the rad with 50/50. Ran the car, it overheated. Carefully released the bleeder screws and a lot of steam came out while running. Started it back up with the rad cap off, overheated and coolant spilled over the top onto things like the belt. I attempted, after 15 minutes of allowing it to cool off, to drive it 2 miles to home, but it only got 1/2 a mile then got to 230-240. Stopped, went to dinner(35 minutes), came back and it didn't go 1 degree over 185 all the way home. I even let it run for a while and it was sucking down coolant as we were pouring it into the overflow reservoir. I hope that my problem is solved now, but I was thinking that my thermostat may be going bad. Any thoughts?

 

[FormulaJoe]

As said, loctite isn't thread sealer. You might want to re-do that part because you may have the same leak come back sooner or later.

I'm pretty positive your thermostat is fine. If I read your post correctly, it seems that you only poured coolant in to the radiator. The reason your engine overheated is because your block still had massive air bubbles in it from when it previously leaked out a bunch of coolant, or if you drained the block of coolant.
As said in shboxs' writeup to avoid what you experienced from happening you need to take the thermostat housing off, remove thermostat, then fill with coolant until the pump is full then reinstall thermostat and housing. This fills the block with coolant and gets rid of the large air pockets. Then you move on to filling the radiator and bleeding the smaller air pockets out. You only need to add coolant to the overflow tank if when cold the coolant is below the cold mark.

Hope that helps.

 

[new2chevy]

As far as filling the system goes....Man, I just run the car with the radiator cap off and pour the coolant into the radiator and keep doing that for a while then I open the bleeder valve screw on the upper radiator hose, cap the radiator, then add coolant to the reservoir and keep filling until a consistent small flow of coolant is observed coming out of the bleeder valve. Maybe this isn't the right way, but it works for me, and my car never overheats.

 

[shoebox]

I'm getting closer and closer! Looking at shoebox's proper coolant fill method, it says to run the engine with the rad cap off. However, it doesn't specify if I should leave the bleeder screws released or not with the engine running or not, or maybe I read it too quickly and passed over it. Anyways, I first filled the rad with 50/50. Ran the car, it overheated. Carefully released the bleeder screws and a lot of steam came out while running. Started it back up with the rad cap off, overheated and coolant spilled over the top onto things like the belt. I attempted, after 15 minutes of allowing it to cool off, to drive it 2 miles to home, but it only got 1/2 a mile then got to 230-240. Stopped, went to dinner(35 minutes), came back and it didn't go 1 degree over 185 all the way home. I even let it run for a while and it was sucking down coolant as we were pouring it into the overflow reservoir. I hope that my problem is solved now, but I was thinking that my thermostat may be going bad. Any thoughts?

Yeah, it says to close the bleeder screws before you even start the engine. The method on my site is pretty much right out of the factory service manual.

 

[steveo]

as a rule, red loctite should never be used on anything that isnt subjected to the most extreme stress and vibration

and to be honest loctite (preferrably blue, though) is a fairly effective thread sealant on tapered pipe thread. not ideal, but i'd leave them alone, for fear of breaking/stripping the fittings at this point