Where could my coolant be going?

I thought this was a symptom of a blown head gasket, but I only get oil smoke out the pipes, and just at startup- only sometimes. Also only small oil puddles, so I am sure there are no coolant leaks.

Temp. hardly gets to oper. temp, unless I drive for a long time, or if I am in stop and go.

So coolant system is still functioning.

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

 

Yup....

Sounds like a relatively small leak that drips or runs somewhere that's hot enough to where it all evaporates; or it's the water pump seal, and it's all going on the pulley and getting slung off, for the time being; or your recovery bottle is cracked.

 

Could it be the intake manifold leaking?

 

assuming you have the stock engine, look at your upper thermostat housing.... im starting to find that they warp over the years and leak just a lil bit... enough that you need to add coolent every once in awhile......

on a TBI/carbed car its easy to tell... the black paint gets "steamed" off over time...

other thing to check is your oil... athough we hope its not in there..

 

I'll check the thermostat housing, and overflow tank. Would I be able to notice the intake manifold leak? It would probably drip into the engine wouldn't it?

I changed the oil today, looks like dirty oil. I don't really know what it will look or smell like if coolant is in it.

Thanks for the ideas, I hope it is something easy, like therm. housing or overflow.

 

if it looked like oil, then the coolent not going into the motor oil.