As if my day hadn't gone bad enough already, as I was sitting in bumper to bumer traffic (always fun after you've just finished a 13 hour shift ) on my way home today, I happened to look at the driverside mirror and noticed somesmoke outside. At first I didn't think anything of it (didn't think it was coming from my car, and actually thought it was just dust that had been kicked up in the air from cars passing by) but it started getting worse, and I began to smell antifreeze. I rolled down the window, and sure enough, it was coming out from underneith my car !

I looked at the temperature gauge and nearly **** myself when I saw the needle pointing straight up 90 degrees in the danger zone.

Thankfully, there was a side street a few feet ahead I managed to pull into and shut off the car.

I popped the hood to check the coolant level but strangly enough, the resevoir was full. So I gently loosened the radiator cap sloooowly (so I wouldn't have hot antifreeze shoot out and kill me) but nothing happened. No antifreeze spilled out. WTF?? No pressure? This wasn't good. I took off the cap completely and noticed there was NOTHING in the radiator. Not a drop.

I called up my boss whom I knew was at a job site near my location and asked him to bring me some water to fill my radiator, and he ended up just buying some antifreeze for me instead. He showed up and we started pouring some antifreeze in the radiator but we immediatly started to hear something "dripping" coming from underneith the car.

We looked underneith and noticed that the antifreeze was just POURING out, right around the oil filter area. When I mean pouring, I mean it was flowing out like there was no tomorrow.


Anyways, to make a long story short, I ended up having to wait another 3 hours sitting inside my car waiting for a flatbed to show up. We dropped the car at one of my mechanic friends and I'll go and see him tomorrow after work.


Basically, I was just wondering whether anybody had an idea, what the problem could be. The leak is coming from the oil filter area, literally falling off the filter onto te floor.

What do you think it could be?

Cracked or burst coolent line? Intake leak? Or something worse?

If anybody could give me an idea, that would be appreciated.

 

Hopefully it is just a core plug. I guess it could be an intake or head gasket, although I kinda doubt it.

 

you might have a freeze plug leaking (rusted through) , I had that happen to my ford truck.

 

Thanks for the quick replies guy's, I hadn't though about that possibility. How difficult would it be to replace/repair the plug ? I mean, how many hours (roughly) labour are we talking here? 1 - 2 or more?

I sincerely hope it's not more than that, cause I work in construction and we just started working full time again, last week after a pretty slow winter, so money is really thight

What if this end up being something worse, like an intake or head gasket leak? How many hours would that (roughly) be to fix?

 

depends how asseccable that plug is on your engine... But for a quick fix, your in luck if you goto the parts store they make these 'help' type temp fix freeze plugs that are rubber and expand to seal the plug spot... my/not be a good solution for you.. But they do work...

 

Thought I'd post an update to let you know what had happened.

Picked up the car yesterday, and was told that one of the freeze plugs had come right out. My mechanic said it was obvious what had happened, right away after putting the car on the hoist. He ordered a new plug, put it in, filled the rad with anti-freeze and that was that.

But, he said, after a while, he started to wonder how (and more importantly, why) a plug would come out, when all I was doing was sitting in traffic.

He went back to my car, started it up, and let it run for a while. After 20 minutes, he noticed that the carr was overheating again. it took him a while, but it suddenly occured to him that neither of the two fans were kicking in and traced the problem to a faulty fan relay.

Turns out, the fans weren't coming on which caused the engine to overheat to the point the pressure got so high, the freeze plug popped out.

Anyways, the car is fine now and back on the road. I'm relieved it wasn't anything major.

Thanks for the help guy's. I appreciate it.

 

Also sounds like your radiator cap wasn't venting the pressure. It should have opened up and overflowed your catch tank. I'm kinda surprised your hoses didn't blow before the freeze plug came out. Might want to throw a 5$ radiator cap on it just to be safe.

 

yes your cap should have open well glad to hear that it was taken care of

 

I got stuck in the ghetto one time because the t-stat wouldn't open. It's always the little things that cause me to get stuck somewhere.

<---- does not blend in well in the ghetto

 

wow freeze plugs suck i just did all of them on my aunts 88 GTA and man were they a pain in the a**. removing the motor mounts etc etc i would never do it again with the motor in the car.