She leaks me... she leaks me not



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Faulkner
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Joined: Sun Mar 07, 2004 6:59 pm
Location: Upper Darby, PA
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She leaks me... she leaks me not

Post by Faulkner »

Last fall, I had all six of the lower freeze plugs replaced (with rubber ones). Seemed to work great...

Over the winter, I noticed that there was antifreeze in the drip pan! Bummer, dude! One winter day on a drive, it seemed to leak quite a bit...

I couldn't identify which freeze plug it was coming from. Today, I wiped everything down, took it for a drive, put it in the garage up on ramps, ran it till it was hot...

Nothing. Nada. Not a drip. Let it cool down, checked the radiator -- full.

Whassup? It's 70ish here today -- could the temperature have something to do with it, a difference in coefficients of expansion, or sumthin' like that? Halp!!

Back out to the garage to drain a bit of tranny fluid -- a pint too high (causing another leak?!)

Dan
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rogerh
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Location: Seabeck, Wa.

antifreeze in the oil

Post by rogerh »

Antifreeze can get into the crankcase via a bad head gasket too, I believe.
How well does the car run? any white smoke out of the tailpipe?
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Faulkner
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Post by Faulkner »

Well, Faulkner does use a little oil -- but not a lot, so I do occasionally see a whiff of smoke. But no, the head gaskets are fine, no leaks into the crankcase (with telltale beads on the dipstick). It's all under the car. Fortunately for me, I believe it's the one directly above the starter, which is locked in by the lead pipe :cry:

Dan
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schlaaj
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Re: She leaks me... she leaks me not

Post by schlaaj »

I happened to have to pull my starter and like Faulkner said, the exhaust pipe blocks clear access to two of the three starter bolts. I did manage to get starter bolts out with a lot of tedious wrenching and turning with my finger tips. One of the bolts backs out hitting the exhaust pipe. That bolt and the starter have to come out together and reverse the process when re-installing. Once bolts were out, the starter will come right out. I am thinking of re-routing the exhaust pipe to the outside of the torsion bar and thereby making oodles of room to access the three starter mounting bolts in the future. (The exhaust pipe on the passenger side of my car is already routed to the outside of the torsion bar and crosses underneath the torsion bar on its way to the muffler. )

Regarding the engines soft plugs, I also had two of them leaking antifreeze, so I pulled them all out (both sides) and replaced them with expanding rubber plugs. Problem solved. (It did require me to removed the starter to get at the one located just above it) A tip on using these expanding rubber plugs, after you drive the car for a week or two, go back and retighten these soft plugs once they take a set.
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