jheff

I was driving my car today and when I parked the car I heard a gurgling noise. Opened the hood and it was just some water boiling off the exhaust manifold (It rained for the past couple days and I dont have the luxury of a garage.

But one thing I did notice was the smell of coolant (not burning). So i took a look and i found that there was coolant on top of my transmission. This originally freaked me out because the car currently has a crankcase vent line that bleeds on top of the trans (working on a solution, if you have catch can recommendations please share). but upon further inspection there was a drop on the lower radiator hose and the upper intercooler piping.

This led me to believe that there is no coolant in the crank case (that would suck). But there is a leak somewhere. I tightened the clamps on the engine side of the radiator hoses (I got like a 3/4 turn out of both clamps). What confuses me is that how would coolant get on to the bend in the UICP and also pool on the transmission.

If you want more pictures just ask, thank you for the help!

EDIT: Well, a long time later, I have found the issue. It seems that the thermostat has not been properly sealing in the housing. I opened the hood while the car was cooling down on a downhill, and I noticed that there was a little bit of coolant coming out of the seam between the the water neck and the thermostat housing itself. I will be taking the neck off this or next weekend when I do all the fluids for the car. Hopefully, no bad signs in the fluids.

cleong

It might be your radiator's top end tank, if it was still the plastic original piece. The coolant would trickle backward along your top hose, carried by slipstream before dripping onto your transmission case.

4G63_EVO

iTrader: (4)

Easy way to find it, head over to a local auto parts store and rent a pressure tester for free. Has saved my *** more times than I can count!

jheff

Do you mean the reservoir? I didnt find any evidence of coolant on the hoses but I will drive the car and see if i do.

I am trying to contact a friend to see if he has the correct adapter to work on our radiators. Does Advance or any of those guys usually have them?

4G63_EVO

iTrader: (4)

I got the one from oreilly and it has it, our radiator neck is a fairly common one, the cap adapter you might have some trouble finding but thats not what you need

barneyb

The puddle is directly below the thermostat housing and upper radiator hose connection. I'd look there.

boostedwrx

iTrader: (27)

I bet the o-ring for that connection is shot or ripped. What Barney said.

Bhsj13

hoses to the TB?

LetsGetThisDone

iTrader: (1)

Check your turbo coolant lines, I had an identical leak, and it was those. They leak if you don't use OEM hoses and the OEM spring clamps.

heel2toe

iTrader: (41)

I'd also check your connection of the lower radiator hose where it connects to that water pump pipe. Those hoses should have spring clamps on them not those worm drive ones you have on there. For starters you can try snugging it down but if you find it is leaking from there replace any clamps with the OEM spring ones.

CaptainSquirts

iTrader: (3)

I had to replace some of my T bolt clamps on my radiator hoses since they would leak regardless the tightness. The cold/heat would make the hose expand/shrink which would leak. I had to use gates powergrip clamps to stop the leaks.

Best way i found where I was leaking was getting a dye and using a UV light to see where the leak was coming from. Pressure tester didn't recreate my issue.

heel2toe

iTrader: (41)

T bolts on radiator hoses? Why not just use the tried and true factory spring clamps?

CaptainSquirts

iTrader: (3)

Because I asked the company I was buying all my radiator and hoses from and they said the best thing for them would be the t bolt clamps.

LetsGetThisDone

iTrader: (1)

tbolt or worm drive?

Klaiceps

iTrader: (18)

T bolts do not work well on radiator hoses. I bought some thinking they are better than OEM, however no matter how tight I made them they always leaked. I went back to OEM spring clamps and what do you know.... no more leaks.