So I go to leave my brothers house today and I notice a nice little pool of coolant under the car... always a good time, so I check and it's not that low so I take the car home and the coolant light comes on and off a few times... I get home and it's not leaking while running so I shut it off and I see it is leaking... now it looks like it was coming from the radiator, I saw nothing on any of the hoses, nothing from the water pump, but I did see coolant on the fan and where it was dripping seemed like the radiator... I kinda wish now I picked up that one that was on ebay a little while ago. I think I might try some bars stop leak or something along those lines, I just wanted to make sure it wouldn't really hurt anything if I did. I might even take it to the local radiator shop next week and see what they say about it. Also while I was under there I noticed oil all over the place, but it does look like it is mainly leaking from the drain plug which I can just grab if I ever get time to get to the junk yard. Nick, I can't wait to get your car so I don't have to drive the TGP every day like I have had to for the past 2 months... :(
I also checked and the coolant level wasn't very low in the radiator, and it was still a very nice green color which made me happy, however the coolant bottle was like empty so for now I just filled with water as I had no extra coolant layin in the garage...
Don't EVER use stop leak!!! It will gum up the cooling system horribly. Check the metal heater hose that runs from your waterpump to the heater core. It runs down along the bottom of the passenger side fender-well and catches a lot of rocks and crap that eats all the paint off the steel pipe. Then it starts to rust. After 18 years of this, the pipe will rot and leak. My TGP has never seen a winter and I accidentally bumped that line while working on it last summer and it broke and gushed coolant everywhere. I replaced it with some quality rubber heater hose with no problems. Looks factory!
no it's not there, it is clearly coming from the radiator area.... it is leaking directly under the radiator... :(
it's kinda funny... in my malibu, I think at one time I had more stopleak in there than coolant...lol
Well look at this as a time to upgrade for that hot topgun chip you have, relocate the battery to the trunk, pull the front fascia, install front mount intercooler, have exhaust shop fab up some intercooler piping and then install a regular w-body radiator. Or instead of the battery relocation just get one of those really small racing batteries to free up room to run the IC piping where the snockle goes on an NA motor.
At least that is what I'm going to do when my tgp radiator pukes.
It's all goodness!
I think his TGP is pretty low mileage though.. I think you should try to keep her original man!
If its leaking by the radiator, check all the fittings and hoses for leaks first.
ya, I got just over 58k miles on it... don't get me wrong, I would love a FMI, and I am taking the whole front end apart next week when I get my bumper back from paint, replacing the bumper reinforcements while I am at it. after that all I will need is a hood and new radiator shroud and all the damaged parts from the collision before I got it will be fixed.... but I don't think I could afford the intercooler, nor the custom pipe work for it. The battery relocation is something I plan to do one day though on the other hand. I am takin it to a radiator shop in the morning, they said they would look at it for free and let me know whats up which is cool.
Well I hope they can fix it, from my experience most of the time they can't be repaired if they are too far gone. You might be ok since yours is low mileage.
I realize your car is low miles......but these cars are hardly collectors items......you won't be seeing them go for 100k on Barret Jackson and whatnot. Enjoy the car and and mod it if you want, just do it correctly and keep it neat and clean. As long as you do that you will not devalue the car at all :icon_mrgreen:
Let us know if you can get it fixed!
ya, so I went there this morning, and the guy said it's probably just a little pinhole leak that should be able to be fixed no problem. So when I get back from MN next week I am gona take the radiator down to him... I figure I will wait til then as I will have the whole front end pretty much torn apart at that point. I will keep you posted...
The radiator isn't hard to remove at all if you wanted to save yourself a few $'s and take only it to the shop with you when you have it repaired. Oh yeah, oil drain plugs are $2ish at any parts store. ;)