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View Full Version : The Case of the Missing Coolant


Turbo Trans Am
09-23-2004, 05:36 PM
I was driving the TTA into town today when I noticed my gas was a hair away from E on the fuel gauge. I floored the car to clear a yellow street light and noticed shortly after that my engine temp was rising fast. I pulled over and saw my coolant overflow was practically empty, and I barely see any coolant in the radiator!! The radiator cap was sealed tight and I couldn't find a leak anywhere or any signs of coolant leakage. I just filled the radiator and overflow a week earlier after my radiator cap blew off and sloshed coolant all about the engine bay while testing how much boost my new Nitto drag radials would hold (1 measely pound by the way.) After gassing up and filling coolant again, I let the car sit to see if anything would leak on to the ground -no dice. This incident happened a few hours ago, and the car runs 10-20 degrees hotter. I seriously doubt I blew a headgasket. No smoke coming out of exhaust, coolant isn't brown, and there is no cappacino foamy look under the radiator cap. Is it possible to have a leaky gasket where coolant can slowly disappear? If anyone has experienced this or has any insight at all as to what demons are causing this, I would be forever grateful.

Turbo2nr
09-24-2004, 06:15 PM
When you are not looking, coolant thiefs are stealing your coolant. Happens all the time. I'd set up a video camera to catch them in action.

Scott

Danin
09-29-2004, 11:34 PM
(Before I begin; I own an 87 T-Type..not entirely sure how similar mine is to yours, but..oh well.)
I realize there's very little chance of this happening to you as well, but I had a very similar 'mystery' coolant leak.. I had replaced my heater core 'cause I blew it up (oops) and about two weeks after, I started losing coolant every few days.. I pressure tested the crap out of that thing, to the max limit allowable by the system and not a drip..after several hours/days of testing I nudged one of the coolant lines for the heater core, and it sprayed. As it turns out, when I pushed the hose further ON, it leaked, fast..the hose clamp was just loose enough that when the hose tried to pop off, it'd grip the swell at the end of the pipe and seal properly, so it never acted up under pressure... The only other thing I can think of off the top of my head would be perhaps the throttle body heater line, though I'm not sure if you've got one of those.