coolant coolant everywhere...

[RogueSHO]

ugh... first off, a welcome back to me from me. now, new sho, red on mocha 92 mtx(joint project; swapable parts from my green 92 mtx...). been on the road exactly one day. ok, i'm in a hurry, still feeling it out... punch it in second (MAYBE 6500RPMish)... 5 minutes later i'm looking at a rather large green puddle. son of a... so anyway, some background. car's secondary solonoids not clicking in when i turn the key (always on, i'm sure gas milage is terrible), "variable blower control module" wacky... annoying... clickedy-click-woosh-woosh) disconected it(is THIS bad to do?); planning to swap later today. (read a post on this recently, can't remember who but thank you for posting pics... gotta love forums) after pulling over to avoid eminent overheating, decided to look in the radiator, check how low it is, yadda yadda... well... this is quite odd... slime. i mean, green, stuck-to-all-nearby-surfaces slime. honestly, it looked like algae. oh yeah, and black grit... yum. can't tell where the leak is coming from... any suggestions? bottle holds water when engine is off... 'bout all i can tell you. please help... headbang

 

[Machspeed]

Well if theres green sludge it proly means its been leaking there a while. You dont see any busted hoses? You just gotta look and see where the coolant is coming from. What side of the engine? Start the car, idle and see if you can see any coming out.

 

[RogueSHO]

alright, here's the thing... where ever it's coming from it's dripping onto something else and traveling, pouring out in multiple areas and such. the first thing i noticed was "engine coolant low" (cool, it works thumb ). at that point i'm thinking "ok, where's the closest store so i can dump some water in to get it home NOW...", then as i pulled to a near stop, a white puff comes up from where the windshield wipers are. now i'm really stressed... when i was parked at the service station less than a 1/4mi away, i moved it to use a hose they had out back. that's when i saw the green puddle.

what i can tell you is that the puff came off the cat, i saw the coolant still hitting it and steaming when i was parked.

 

[SHOnuff93]

well man people will just gues and guess, YOU ned to go look for the leak. We can suggest every seal and hose that passes coolant but that does you no good. Pooke your head under ther and look.

The low coolant light is pretty much a waste, it reads the level of coolant in the bottle not the system. I cracked my bottle during a nitrous run and now it leaks coolant but my system is always full since the system is sealed. So all i can say is that if the radiator was low then the leak isnt from the bottle.

 

[JoeHoe_SHO]

Waterpump is my guess.

 

[masho95]

SHOnuff93, just curious as to how you got those times in your sig? The faster run has a slower overall MPH? Did you post them wrong?

 

[RogueSHO]

ok, well.... i know it's just guesswork... i should have been more clear. i wanted to know where the "sludge" came from and what would cause it. also, i was waiting for someone to say "waterpump", as i was suspecting it myself. what i mean as far as suggestions for a source of the leak; i pushed it harder than i had to that point... highest rpm 6.5k or so... and i was wondering what is most likely to fail under the stress, i.e. a weak pump or more likely a hose... i don't know. i don't think too clearly when i'm stressed about cars. the leak seams more or less towards the back... i wouldn't think it was the bottle or the hose connecting to it because for one, it should theoretically come down right there and the bottle holds water when it's not running. the radiator did seem a bit low though...

 

[David Mueller]

When my water pump leaked it leaked coolant all over the cat. Most of the other coolant lines are not anywhere near the cats. Also, the pump doesn't really leak much when the car is not running. It really isn't that hard to see if is leaking from the pump. And with these cars it isn't too uncommon a problem.