Coolant disappearing: Heater core leaking?

[wertyu78]

Hey!


I've been trying to figure out why my coolant has been disappearing for the last 3 weeks. The entire cooling system is only 14,000 miles old. I'm talking everything. I checked again tonight and no sign of leaking. It seems that every 50-60 miles I drive, the coolant warning light comes on. Sure enough, the float in the overflow tank is at the bottom.


So I'm thinking where is it going? I begin to think it could be a small headgasket leak, so I check the tailpipe and no white smoke. Pull the plugs and they look fine. Pistons are dry as should be. Put a pressure tester on the expansion tank and run the car, indicates head gasket is fine.. as it should be! Rebuilt the head 3,400 miles ago!

Okay, so it's not the head gasket and it's not the cooling system....but why does the gauge show I'm losing 3.5 lbs of pressure?

It's leaking somewhere..... I begin to remember last winter. I had a terrible problem with fogging windows and a very unpleasant smell. Perhaps it is in fact the heater core leaking. I dunno... help me out here!

[Avetiso]

Gonna hope for your sake it's not the heater core.

[wertyu78]

Gonna hope for your sake it's not the heater core.

I'm not looking forward to having to do it, if it is the heater core. But if it must be done then I gotta do it!

[Hermes]

put some newspaper down under your car when you get home and see where the wet spots are.

[wertyu78]

Drove it for 30 minutes last night to get it up to operating temp. Parked it in the garage and came out this morning to a clean floor.

[danewilson77]

Drove it for 30 minutes last night to get it up to operating temp. Parked it in the garage and came out this morning to a clean floor.

Obviously the splash shield underneath was removed.

[wertyu78]

Obviously the splash shield underneath was removed.

Yes, I took it off months ago.

[danewilson77]

I ran into a similar situation with a hailine crack in my expansion tank. You could not see the crack with the expansion tank installed. To make matters worse and even tougher to diagnose was the fact that it would only leak after the car was warm, and I was driving around.....so like you....I never saw anything in my troubleshooting, but level always slowly went down.

http://i1015.photobucket.com/albums/af278/nicee46/Maintenance%20and%20Misc/DSC02730sz1200.jpg (http://s1015.photobucket.com/user/nicee46/media/Maintenance%20and%20Misc/DSC02730sz1200.jpg.html)

[wertyu78]

I ran into a similar situation with a hailine crack in my expansion tank. You could not see the crack with the expansion tank installed. To make matters worse and even tougher to diagnose was the fact that it would only leak after the car was warm, and I was driving around.....so like you....I never saw anything in my troubleshooting, but level always slowly went down.

http://i1015.photobucket.com/albums/af278/nicee46/Maintenance%20and%20Misc/DSC02730sz1200.jpg (http://s1015.photobucket.com/user/nicee46/media/Maintenance%20and%20Misc/DSC02730sz1200.jpg.html)

Thanks Dane! Found some white residue on the inside of the expansion tank today. Hopefully it's as simple as that.


Still, I lost a whole expansion tank full of coolant in 15 hours....

[echo46]

Are you sure you don't have a head gasket leak? If not I'm thinking heater core also.

[LivesNearCostco]

When I was inspecting my car before purchase, we found a streak of dried coolant on the side of the radiator plastic end tank. These don't fail as often as the ET but are known to fail between 120K and 150K miles.

Edit: 3 years and 40,000 miles after radiator replacement, I was chasing another leak, only to find it was from not tightening the ET cap enough! (And maybe also from ET not sealing properly to base plate, still not sure on that one.)

[wertyu78]

Are you sure you don't have a head gasket leak? If not I'm thinking heater core also.

Yes. Everything indicates a leak elsewhere in the system.

[ejp2fast]

Thanks Dane! Found some white residue on the inside of the expansion tank today. Hopefully it's as simple as that.


.
so i would say expansion tank is culprit for small crack - thus replacement. keep us informed.

[wertyu78]

I had my trusted indy come over today. It didn't take him long to figure it out.

The head gasket is seeping into cylinders 2 and 5. Which explains why my coils went bad. Those coil-packs measured over 1 ohm of resistance last week on a Diagnostic machine. It also explained the misfire on those cylinders on cold startups. The leakage happens overnight while the system is pressurized. We pulled the plugs and pressurized the system. Sure enough, coolant begins to slowly come into cylinders 2 and 5.


So.... head has to come off.... again. I'm worried that the threads in the block somehow stripped or have lifted, allowing the seepage. It's strange that it has just begun to happen, as I've put 3,200 miles on the car since the top end rebuild.

Cylinder 1: Dry
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b256/wertyu78/ZHP%20BUILD%20THREAD/IMG_2735.jpg (http://s21.photobucket.com/user/wertyu78/media/ZHP%20BUILD%20THREAD/IMG_2735.jpg.html)

Cylinder 2: Wet (note this is after turning it over to see how much coolant was there)
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b256/wertyu78/ZHP%20BUILD%20THREAD/IMG_2734.jpg (http://s21.photobucket.com/user/wertyu78/media/ZHP%20BUILD%20THREAD/IMG_2734.jpg.html)

[Tnhl1989]

Totally sucks man. I have a block sitting at my garage if you need one :)

[wertyu78]

Totally sucks man. I have a block sitting at my garage if you need one :)


This year has sucked.... But I may give you a ring about that. If it is in fact the block, it's that or a built Weisco block that my indy has.

[wertyu78]

My Indy and I are going to barter out services this weekend. He's coming over to pull the head while I setup Gt1/progman SSS, tis, and NCS for him.


Meanwhile, I think I may pickup this dub

http://greenville.craigslist.org/cto/3773204547.html

When I'm not out for a spirited drive, I'm a hypermiler!. The 1.6d has proven to be a rock solid/bomb proof engine. Although it is annoyingly underpowered, I think it would be a neat car to DD so I can start to focus on doing some big projects on the E46.

[aurelius]

What happened that you had to rebuild the cylinder head?

[echo46]

Damn, that's what i was afraid of. Are you going to do it yourself?