jordanbailey

Hello all,

I've been tracking a small coolant leak for the past several months. I replaced the radiator a few weeks ago and also identified a small leak on top of the intake at the union which feeds the throttle body. After replacing the radiator I left the skid plate off so I could closely monitor for any leaks after driving. What I've encountered has me a bit stumped. After bringing the truck up to temp on drives and getting back home, there are no noticeable signs of a leak. However, after leaving the truck to sit for about 1-3 days I noticed that it will spit out a couple of ounces of coolant. The area around the thermostat and the engine oil coolant hose looks a bit wet, but I can't tell if the coolant would be coming from there or is just making its way down there from somewhere higher. Obviously, the delay in the leak points to something that is hot vs. cold-related but it isn't clear to me.

I'm wondering if anyone has experienced this or something like it and can point me down the right path. As always, the help is appreciated.

Saturn

So did you fix the leak at the rear union? And is it leaking at the throttle body? I dealt with both of those, ended up bypassing the throttle hose and replacing all the rear hoses. Fair warning, the ones in the back area PAIN if you don't yank the manifold.

jordanbailey

I have not tackled the leak at the union yet. I have a previous thread on that, in my case, it is the one towards the front that is showing signs of a small leak.

Andrew Parker

This weeping at or near the thermostat mounting is akin to the water pump. The water pump housing is what the thermostat is joined too and shares the same three studs that the cover and pipe connector uses for the radiator hose fitting. It could be that gasket which is aluminum on cast iron or it might be that the water pumps shaft seal is headed south. That can be hard to realize as the coverings for the timing belt make seeing this failure difficult. But be aware that when my sons 1990 pickup had a water pump fail it wasted his timing belt as the lubrication that the antifreeze placed on it degraded the belt rapidly to the point where the teeth came off and he lost his timing. It is good to realize these are not interfearence engines. The water pump and timing belt were less than 60K. Cheap kit on Ebay lesson learned. As you have a 92 it will probably have the spring tensioner and setting that up correctly requires pulling out the pins on the cam sprockets and rotating the crank with the cams being stationary so that the tensioner and the spring can get the static belt tension correct. FSM read on this is important so as not to get the tension overly tight.