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Coolant Leak I haven't seen before

Burbman

Burbman

New member
Have been smelling coolant after shutting the car off for a week or two now, and finally got the dreaded Low Coolant lite Friday night. Topped it off with Dexcool. Car sat all weekend, then first thing Monday morning I get the light again about 2 blocks from the house. Come out from work and there is a large coolant puddle under the car. Drive home and now the light is off ?!?!

Checked it out in the driveway last night and see a small drip coming down under the car from behind the trans pan. Location is almost under where the heater hoses go into the firewall, but the hose connections were bone dry. Looking from the top, there is a small puddle of coolant in one of the webbed sections on top of the trans housing. Checked all the hoses I could find and the elbow going into the tensioner as well as those ends of the heater hoses looked dry.

Previous owner said LIM had been done and the elbow is the metal Dorman replacement.

Obviously I need to get it in the garage and get under it and try to see where the leak is. BUT one question: can the LIM leak OUT, or does it always fail where it dumps coolant in the cylinders? It is possible that the 3.4 pulley is overpressurizing the intake caused the gasket to blow out?

Looking for ideas/comments before I tear into it. Finally moved into a house and got the tools unpacked, but storage pod is sitting in the driveway blocking the garage....they pick it up on Friday so hope to look at it over the weekend.
 


i had this leak, was the hose end to the heater core being old and shot. it leaked only when the car was hot, then leaked behind the pad on the firewall then dripped off the bottom middle of the fire wall.
 
Scotty, different leak. I finally got it in the garage and the coolant was coming from the throttle body gasket, dripping down on the trans, and running around and dripping off the frame by the trans.

Look at the gasket port on the lower right, the back side of the throttle body gasket. Nut in that corner was loose and letting coolant leak.

20151020_214933_zpsjv8wod2r.jpg


Looks like there is a throttle body spacer here:

20151020_214839_zps7d6uekna.jpg


The spacer is plastic with a rubber gasket on easch side and it says "Easy Performance" on the gasket. Question is do I need to run this as a supporting mod for the 3.4 pulley or can I ditch it? Does it help at all? I have always heard these do nothing but lighten your wallet. This car is new-to-me and came with mods so still sorting it out.

Lots of carbon in the throttle body:

20151020_214950_zpse1oix9ca.jpg
 
Get rid of the throttle body spacer unless you are using it for Meth or Nos. There is a reason that everyone says to avoid those things like the plague, all they do is leak.
 


Do I need to replace the studs too? These look pretty long. I'm on Rock Auto and I got the gasket but dont see the studs. Anybody got a part # or thread size?
 


These are what's in there, from the ZZP site, "Throttle Body Spacer Studs", not gonna work without the spacer.

zz_tbsstud.jpg


I did find out they are M6 thread, so the plan is to hit the hardware store for some M6 bolts, cut the heads off and cut to length. I ordered the stock GM TB gasket from Rock Auto today. Thankfully the LIM is good, so saved myself that job. Also replacing the hoses, belts, and t-stat and doing a coolant change. May as well before it gets too cold.....no heat in this garage!
 
Without the spacer the TB falls in that area where there are no threads, see pic above. If the long bolts had threads all the way down I would just run the nuts on. I guess I could use a die to cut more threads on these, but prob easier to just replace.
 
what im mean is if you find new bolts with threads the same length as the longer threads on the spacer studs you can just use the new bolts from the hardware store vs cutting the heads off.

as long as the bolts dont bottom out you fine.
 


Ok I see what you mean....doesn't have to be a stud per se...I could also add a spacer under the nut and on top of the TB if I needed to, not a lot of torque on these bolts. Will diddle with that later.

Bill, FYI did you see Berkley Breathed is drawing Bloom County again and posting on his FB page?
 
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