Thread: Coolant Leak

Ok, so I have a coolant leak coming from the little 90 degree elbow that's below the supercharger snout. From what I've seen on here so far, I guess it's "in" the intake manifold? I so have the blower/snout and stuff off so far and just makin sure I'm heading in the right direction. Also, any suggestions on what else to do while I'm in there would be helpful. I'm already replacing my bad coupler and porting the blower and tb so... Thanks!

You'll need to remove your belts and the alternator bracket, maybe more that I'm not thinking of right now. Your leaky elbow is the upper elbow. There's a lower coolant elbow there that will probably break also, so you'll want to buy both of them. Parts of the elbow will probably break off inside the housing, no matter how careful you are. They usually break off where the O-ring's are. Shine your flashlight inside the insertion points, locate where pieces had broken off, and pry the pieces out with a flathead screwdriver.

Part numbers should be:
24053423 Pipe assembly w/ O-rings
12565082 Pipe w/O-rings

Ok, so no go with porting the tb then, basically the car is stock and I would rather not have to get it tuned so. That's why I was putting this out there before I did port anything.

So for changing the elbows, I know this might be a dumb question, but do they just "pop" out without actually having to get down into the engine? I'm more or less a newbie at car stuff, whatever I know is because I learned by doing it on this car and I've never really had the engine apart so. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated

Oh, also what I meant by is there anything else I need to do, is there any other "preventative maintenance" I should do while I'm working on this other stuff? The car has about 160k on it and I'm hoping for it to at least last until I'm out of school, which is May. Beyond that wouldn't help either because I'd like to get my college loans payed off ya know?

Ok...Yeah, I was pretty sure from what I read that I had to pull the LIM, but the way it was said on this thread looked like they could maybe just be popped in....I'm sure I'll be on here a lot with questions so again any help is appreciated. I'm leaving town tomorrow, so I probably won't be working on it again until next week. It's in an insulated but unheated garage with the blower off, will it be ok sitting like that all week?

Originally Posted by TLSheff

As unfortunate as it is, unless they know something I don't. You have to pull the LIM (Lower Intake Manifold)

Uh oh TLSheff, that was your six hundred and sixty sixth post!!!

I don't think you have to pull the LIM to do the elbows. I did mine while replacing the LIM gasket (LIM means "lower intake manifold", fyi), but you should be able to do it with the LIM in place.

You may as well replace the LIM gasket, however. You'll need to eventually, surprised that it's 160k and hasn't needed it yet! Check out the How To section of the forum, and look for LIM in 33 minutes or something like that from DuBob. It's a video that walks you through the LIM gasket replacement process. You'll see the coolant elbows at about 9 minutes into the video.

If you have a warm garage, some tools, and some patience, you can do it.

Ok...So what I'm seeing from this is I probably have to pull the LIM. Can you guys tell me what all gaskets, o-rings, etc, need replaced? I'm gonna be ordering a coupler from zzp probably today so, any help would be great. I'd like to get it all at once from zzp. Unless you recommend going local for anything.

Thanks

Ok...So I ended up going another route which seems like it will work. However, I did break the tensioner bracket, so I bought a new one. I can't get the heater hoses off the old one though. Any suggestions on how to do this, or where I can find those brackets that mount the hose to the belt tensioner? I'm thinking it would be good to replace the hose but I can't seem to find the little metal brackets.

So the coolant elbow was replaced. Just so you guys know...All you have to do is take the tensioner assembly out, put the coolant elbow in, and bolt it back on. Just be more careful than I was with removing the tensioner assembly and it's a heck of a lot less work than going down the the intake manifolds.

It's not necessary to pull lower intake for these elbows, as I'd said, but you'll want to do the LIM gasket soon! The gaskets fail, and it already is failing but you just can't see it. The gaskets are breaking which allow coolant to leak into the oil. Sometimes, like mine did, it will leak externally. Anyway, bad news. If you're going to remove the supercharger, you're already part of the way there to the LIM gasket so you may as well do it.

Yeah, you do have to take the belts and alternator off but that's not hard, I'm not sure what you mean about the housing? The tensioner assembly has three bolts, one of which is also holding the alternator on, that's the long one so don't forget where it goes. There are no gaskets as part of the tensioner assembly, as long as you don't break the aluminum part that goes into the head all you have to replace is the elbow, which already has o-rings on it.

So, you unbolt the alternator, should be 4 bolts I think, then you unbolt the tensioner assembly which will only have two bolts left, one next to the pulley, the other is below where the heater hoses come in, then GENTLY rock the whole tensioner assembly back and forth to work it out. If you don't end up breaking it you still might want to replace the o-ring on the aluminum part. If you do break it it's about $70 at autozone. Hope this helps.