arghhhh coolant leak from auto transmission "strands" car...

[ryan roopnarine]

pulled into the wal-mart this morning, and see that the temp gauge is beginning to move past the 1/2 mark. immediately turn the car off and look underneath, a gentle stream of coolant is leaking from the transmission area. its small, and i live about 3 mins from this wal mart, so if need be, i can refill and drive it home at midnight when traffic subsides. i'm hoping my roomate will agree to give me a tow home with the tacoma, instead. can anyone (scott of a4s tranny rebuild notoriety???) desccribe which/how many hoses are under there that likely need replacement. anybody professional care to tell me that its a bigger problem than a mere coolant hose? i don't see any other fluid under there, so i'm hoping its merely coolant. thanks in advance.

[Bill R.]

pulled into the wal-mart this morning, and see that the temp gauge is beginning to move past the 1/2 mark. immediately turn the car off and look underneath, a gentle stream of coolant is leaking from the transmission area. its small, and i live about 3 mins from this wal mart, so if need be, i can refill and drive it home at midnight when traffic subsides. i'm hoping my roomate will agree to give me a tow home with the tacoma, instead. can anyone (scott of a4s tranny rebuild notoriety???) desccribe which/how many hoses are under there that likely need replacement. anybody professional care to tell me that its a bigger problem than a mere coolant hose? i don't see any other fluid under there, so i'm hoping its merely coolant. thanks in advance.

[sbcncsu]

There are coolant lines all over that engine compartment, none of which go to the tranny.

Most of the hoses are on the driver's side of the engine. Some are beneath the intake (one in particular looks like some creature from a Sci-Fi movie it has so many arms). Like Bill said, describe where the leak is... Is it near the firewall? Driver's side?

If I were you, I would look around the area where the heater hoses come from the auxiliary coolant pump (on the firewall, driver's side, beneath the heater control valves) through the firewall to the heater core. That is directly above the bell housing and would make it appear that the trans is leaking coolant. That would be the best scenario for you as the hoses are cheap and fairly easy to replace except for bleeding the cooling system and topping off, I always hated doing that...

The worst case scenario is a blown head gasket. I don't think that is your problem but your description reminds me of the failure of the head gasket on our 95 525. We were driving to a movie and all of the sudden steam boiled up from under the hood. Shut off the car and looked, no leak was evident. Started the car and immediately a stream of coolant shot from the right rear of the head onto the firewall and bounced back onto the exhaust manifold. It was horrible, I hope you don't have that same trouble.

HTH.

Email me if you need any more help with this....

[ryan roopnarine]

the main splashdown is occuring on both sides of the main sump....i guess that it could be running down the back as it is a rear wheel drive car. its both sides, but i thought that a coolant line definitely had to be back there, as all of the leakage was occuring down the sides of the two sumps, it is antifreeze though. i don't think i blew a HG luckily scott, it didn't get past 5/8 temperature. i hope it is an american size hose, that would be pleasant. as far as i could see, there was no underhood steam anywhere, no obvious leaks underhood, or under-underhood area, so i guess i don't know where its coming from quite yet. i saw the 4 way hose in the etk right after it happened so i assumed that it routed around the transmission area, as that is where it was leaking from.

[winfred]

at the back of the engine coolent leak is usually the aux water pump under the heater valves, the plastic pump cracks and out it squirts

[ryan roopnarine]

i just filled it with coolant, put the heater on....there's a drip from the passenger side, right beside the main transmission sump. i can't find a leak anywhere else. is there a typical pattern (wrt cylinder number) as to where a headgasket leak typically appears?

[Bill R.]

and see if you smell antifreeze.




i just filled it with coolant, put the heater on....there's a drip from the passenger side, right beside the main transmission sump. i can't find a leak anywhere else. is there a typical pattern (wrt cylinder number) as to where a headgasket leak typically appears?

[ryan roopnarine]

i get the distinct smell of spray starch....no completely affirming antifreeze smell, going to read SBC's page and think a little on it....in this car, is there anyway at all that i could isolate the cooling system from the heater core? not too intuitive seeing as there are three hoses and all.

[ryan roopnarine]

i went ahead and went back out to the car again, it was still dripping from almost precisely beside the drain plug of the main sump. turned the defrost on again, smelled my brains out, still spray starch smell. felt the passenger and driver floors, no wetness. i guess a headgasket probably wouldn't leak antifreeze continuously with the engine off. im going to go back and go under the car with the damn asphalt cools off a little (obc reads 97 now). could you give me some idea, bill, of where exactly this drain is?

[Bill R.]

heater core, its most likely a hose going to or coming from the aux pump and the heater core like Winfred and Scott said... There are also 7 freeze plugs in your block, if a rear one was bad it would leak at the back of the block where the trans joins the engine.. should be obvious though right at the split where they are joined... not as far back as the main trans pan...




i went ahead and went back out to the car again, it was still dripping from almost precisely beside the drain plug of the main sump. turned the defrost on again, smelled my brains out, still spray starch smell. felt the passenger and driver floors, no wetness. i guess a headgasket probably wouldn't leak antifreeze continuously with the engine off. im going to go back and go under the car with the damn asphalt cools off a little (obc reads 97 now). could you give me some idea, bill, of where exactly this drain is?

[MBXB]

While we're on this topic, there's a mess of hoses on the firewall, right in front of the driver. Is that the aux coolant pump? Reason I'm asking is I need to change the hose that runs from the radiator to the coolant tank which runs right under this mess. I couldn't find any reference in the repair manuals or TIS.


There are coolant lines all over that engine compartment, none of which go to the tranny.

Most of the hoses are on the driver's side of the engine. Some are beneath the intake (one in particular looks like some creature from a Sci-Fi movie it has so many arms). Like Bill said, describe where the leak is... Is it near the firewall? Driver's side?

If I were you, I would look around the area where the heater hoses come from the auxiliary coolant pump (on the firewall, driver's side, beneath the heater control valves) through the firewall to the heater core. That is directly above the bell housing and would make it appear that the trans is leaking coolant. That would be the best scenario for you as the hoses are cheap and fairly easy to replace except for bleeding the cooling system and topping off, I always hated doing that...

The worst case scenario is a blown head gasket. I don't think that is your problem but your description reminds me of the failure of the head gasket on our 95 525. We were driving to a movie and all of the sudden steam boiled up from under the hood. Shut off the car and looked, no leak was evident. Started the car and immediately a stream of coolant shot from the right rear of the head onto the firewall and bounced back onto the exhaust manifold. It was horrible, I hope you don't have that same trouble.

HTH.

Email me if you need any more help with this....