Marvin sure likes to keep me on my toes! Tonight's project: replace the heater hoses.
The last few days I've been smelling coolant odor pretty strong around my car. At first I thought it was a vehicle next to me when I dropped mail off at the post office for work. I would smell it only at the post office so I blew it off. So today I stop for gas on the way to work, open my door and whew....smell it stronger. While gassing up, I lifted the hood, no obvious signs of leakage and the reservior still showed full (hot).
Later on Alex calls, and I asked him if theres a problem if I am smelling it but there's no obvious leak. He says yep, and his fear was the headgasket (we just replaced it ourselves 3 months ago and he's been paranoid that he might have screwed up). So he said to smell the exhaust and see if I smell coolant there. Nope. I am sure my coworkers coming in from lunch got their suspicions confirmed that I am quite loopy after they see me crouching by my running car sniffing the exhaust
Checked reservoir, still full, no leakage except for the puddle of water that I get from my AC. No biggie.
Fastforward to the drive home. Stop at the post office, smell is REALLY strong now....pop hood, check everything, nothing obviously wrong except for the smell. Ride home goes smoothly, I turned my AC onto the fresh air vent to see if I can smell it inside, nope...so I assume maybe some coolant leaked out last time I opened the radiator cap to check on things. Get home, temperature is fine etc. When I went to go check my mailbox I noticed a trail of green
So I started the car again and let it run, and looked underneath, and sure enough coolant was going drip drip drip drip right behind the tranny. Popped the hood and there was a pool of it in a "dip" in the tranny housing. I figured it was one of the heater hoses, and sure enough after pulling it off, there was a 3/4" split in one right where the clamp rested. The split looked pretty fresh, I think it had a slow leak all this time and finally split all the way thru on the trip home.
CLIFF NOTES: Car smelled like coolant for a few days, couldn't see any obvious signs of leakage, level in reservoir full. Today the heater hose finally split and leaked. Replaced both of them w00t.
06-25-2003, 03:01 AM
