Title says it all. My car is running at about 240, and sometimes when the car has a hard time starting, I hear a loud hi pitched squealing noise. Then last week I checked my coolant level, and the radiator was completely empty. I refilled it, but the car shows no sign of leaking. Just drove 200 miles to check. Also just hit 80k miles.

 

It's cheeeeeep and quite eeeeeeeezy to change out... while in general it's not the best policy to just randomly replace parts, in some cases it's the best way to troublehsoot stuff. This would be one of those "when in doubt swap it out" kind of deals. Especially if you haven't done it in a real long time.

 

if it's losing coolant and there are no signs of leakage, then that points to an internal engine problem. if it was a bad water pump, there would most likely be leakage out the weep hole. a cracked head could cause coolant loss into the combustion chamber and also cause it to run hot..

 

Well. That would be bad. I'll have to watch the coolant level to see about that. The car runs fine besides for the hard starts. I know it runs lean but was told it's common and usually is for fuel econ.

 

Is there anyway to check if it's leaking into the cylinders?

 

You can have a pressure test done. That checks the whole system tho and doesnt pin point the leak. Also, sometimes you wont see a leak until the engine is hot/expanded. Chances are that if you are 100% sure its not leaking/dripping, but is using coolant, it is burning it. Id put a piece of cardboard under car and the next morning check and see if there is any spots. You can pull a plug and if it has white crap on it that can be a sign of burning coolant. Your exhaust will smoke white and sometimes you can smell sweet coolant.

-Dan

 

The vast majority of the time when coolant mysteriously disappears, it's the water pump...

It comes out the vent holes for the bearing, and the pulley slings it EVERYWHERE. At most you might see a film of rust on the front of the engine, or smell antifreeze, but you won't generally see the leak.

Only place you'll see it is the underside of the lower rad hose. A little bit runs down the bottom of it. Get up under there and look up; if you see a trail of drip down the hose, the WP is leaking.

 

a pressure test does pinpoint the leak- you put pressure on the whole system and see where the water is coming out.

 

Yes, correct, If you can see it. thats it tho.

 

Did you look at the underside of your rad hose yet?

(you can do it yourself, takes only a second or 2 of your time if you're slow and deliberate like me but you can probably do it faster, costs only a tiny fraction of "having" testing done)

 

ya here is what I seen. So do I need a new pump?

 

Looks that way. Although, it might be just the hose; just the same, probably not a bad idea to launch a pre-emptive first strike on the pump and the hose both.

THis is why we do the simple stuff (LOOK at things) before "having" tests done. Start simple, progress onward only if necessary.

 

Yes

 

looks to me like the clamp is loose... try tightening it... the hose could also be bad- if it's original, it's pushing 30 years old.. the water pump itself looks dry from what i can see.

 

if you look under the pump there is a small hole they call that the weep hole its when the bearing starts to leak and the pump is bad that looks like a looks clamp get rid of that style and get a band style cleamp

 

so.......

I replaced the thermostat, upper/lower hose, gaskets, flushed coolant, and replaced the water pump. I had a fancy edelbrock water pump on there. Sad to see it die, I didn't even know I had an aftermarket one. when I took it off you could see that it was leaking from just about everywhere. The car is actually running alot better with the new pump on. Seems like its no longer struggling due to the bad pump. Also this squeak I had went away. But now I have found out that my fan never worked. I tested the relay connector and got 12v so I know that its getting power. I am going to buy a new relay and hope that fixes it. Hope I don't have to replace the cooling fan controller or the fan itself.

 

Yeah sometimes it's hard to see up into all the stuff in there; no clear lines of sight. Amazing how much better you can sometimes diagnose the situation when everything is laying on the ground in front of you.

Let's hope that got it handled. Odds are, it did; but as we all know, few things in life are completely certain. All the same, take it one step at a time: fix things as you find them broken, and if they're broken, just swap em out and move on without too much debate or outsmarting yourself.