ok guys here's one for you. 2001 Sportage, I turned on my heater on a cool morning only to get cold air. then I see the temp gauge raise suddenly. I got to my office a few hundred yards away and let the engine cool for the afternoon. I found the radiator empty and radiator residue sprayed above the oil filter and around the area. Well we found the culprit to be a hose running through and behind the intake manifold. in order to get back there we took the intake top off, and found transmission fliud in a journal between the two sets of intakes when we took the gasket off. There are 3 holes there between the two sets of intakes, the one closest to the engine had the fluid, a lot of it. is this normal? I'm replacing the hoses and the metal hose they connect to, it looks rusted, so while I have it open, it's a "might as well" thing, along with plugs and a PVC valve, as the PVC grommet looks like it's leaking a little, as does the rear of the valve cover. I'm also changing all the spring clamps to screw clamps while I'm in there.

this I consider the plugs and valve cover normal maintenance, but the tranny fluid in this area has me concerned. I don't think there should be any up there. the intake manifolds look clean, the #1 intake has some discoloration I'm attribution to the PVC valve being somewhat dirty, and maybe the plugs need replacement, they have about 22,000 on them. I wanted to use Plantinum, because of how hard it is to change the plugs, but my mecahnic used just regular NGK's instead.

I regularly change the oil and filter, 1st of every month and only use 1 brand of oil, Castrol, and only Wix filters.

we did repair one thing two weeks ago, we found the vacuum line running to the drivers side front 4wd hub broken, and looks like it's been that way for a while, replaced the line, cleaned out the vacuum chamber and checked the diaphram in the hub, and tested the 4wd hub, all seems to work alright. we are not generating any codes. nothing out of the ordinary till yesterday.

Anyone every found tranny fluid in this area, or is this part of some cooling part. My mechanic seems to think it may be a leak in the radiator tranny cooler, but we don't see any evidence of trannny fluid in the coolant, nor any loss of fluid. He's going to dump the fluid today and replace the filter and gasket, he said he has a way of detecting coolant in the fluid, and then put the fluid in a glass vessel to inspect it for coolant to be on the safe side. but we periodically change the fluid and filter anyway. he plans to block off the radiator and pressurize it with a gauge today just to check for any crossover.

OK for the blown hose ...that happens...but any possibility that by some mishap someone mishandled a tranny fluid can and spoiled the area...even with the blown tranny cooler (that happens too) , it seems bizarre it all went to that one place and no other trace anywhere else...
please report any development...

we were close, bad seam in the radiator where the tranny went to the cooler. found tranny fluid in coolant, very small amount. when he put a lot of pressure on the radiator and measured the pressure at the return line to the tranny cooler, the leak showed up, but very small, enough to collect over a long period of time. Rest went together fine. He replaced and encased the lines that ran under and through the manifold in a wire mesh for extra protection. The radiator wasn't too expensive, infact there is a bigger one availble as an after market made for towing. He also changed all the clamps from spring type to screw type, and changed the fuel filter while he had everything open and he was working in that area. He did find some bolts missing on the rear of the valve cover, which caused a small oil leak onto to the hoses, which helps promote some deteration of the hose, and a sharp edge on the intake manifold casting didn't help either, which he filed off. It was a little expensive, but we did a lot of other maintenance that needed to be done while the cover was off the engine, like a new PVC and Grommet, plugs and wires etc., so in the long run I saved on the labor since I would be doing that part in a month or so anyway as routine maintenance. My only complaint on the 2 Sportages I own, is the placement of the spark plugs, and drink holder. Rest is great.