Thread: 99 GTP coolant leak

Recently handed the keys over to my little brother and soon after the car started having issues. About the third day he was driving it he came home saying the car started to overheat and that him and my mom ONLY drive eight miles on the highway to get it back home after it initially started to overheat. So I go out in the driveway and look in the overflow tank, empty, then I check the radiator, no coolant in sight. So I tell them to stop driving the car and I'll do the LIM on it. So pull the car apart and the rear valve cover was coated in crud, cleaned it off, installed new gaskets (also elbows and threw the green stuff in it after emptying the radiator out), and threw it all back together. Tell my little brother to keep checking the car out everyday after he drives it. Comes back to me two days later saying the belts are screeching. So I go out, open the hood and see a nice line of coolant across the hood from being slung off the drive belt. So I take the keys back and tell him we will tear it back down and that maybe the elbows are messed up. So fast forward to the weekend and we pull apart the elbows and they are fine and dandy. So I pull the LIM off again and notice a little bit of leaking out the corners....so I clean everything off, apply more rtv under the gaskets in the corners and on top as well and put it back together. Everything checks out again so I send him on his way. So fast forward to now and his hood has all sorts of coolant slung across it and we have the yellow build up in the oil cap again (I changed the oil and wiped out the cap after redoing the intake).

So question is...what could be causing all this? Could he have cracked a head or blown the head gasket after overheating it that one day? What else could it be?

Do you have a compression tester? I'd do a compression check.

How does the oil look, clean or milky?

Did you drain ALL the orange stuff before adding the green?? Did you flush your heater core and the block of all the orange stuff?? If the two mixed that muddy crap could be all through your system. If you only drained the radiator of the orange stuff, you only got 1/3 to 1/2 the orange stuff out...

Did you check the weep hole in the water pump under the pulley? Could be coolant from it being slung around.

Originally Posted by dbextreme

Do you have a compression tester? I'd do a compression check.

How does the oil look, clean or milky?

Did you drain ALL the orange stuff before adding the green?? Did you flush your heater core and the block of all the orange stuff?? If the two mixed that muddy crap could be all through your system. If you only drained the radiator of the orange stuff, you only got 1/3 to 1/2 the orange stuff out...

Did you check the weep hole in the water pump under the pulley? Could be coolant from it being slung around.

No compression check as of yet....would need to get the tool from O'reillys

Just checked the oil...looked a little cloudy on the end of the dipstick.

Didnt do a vacuum flush on the system but each time I had the car apart I would let the tensioner assembly hang and drain out.... after draining the coolant out the second time I didn't see any orange stuff in the coolant, it was still fresh and green. \

Have not yet checked the water pump out...I'll see if I can do that tomorrow or Sunday.

Any ideas?

Did you replace the two coolant orings under the supercharger with new ones? Compression check when you can.

Originally Posted by dbextreme

Did you replace the two coolant orings under the supercharger with new ones? Compression check when you can.

Yes, both were replaced along with the supercharger gasket.

Could it be a cracked timing cover? I was reading around the site and I guess some people had cracked their timing covers upon installation of the new aluminum coolant elbows (it is my understanding that only the lower elbow can crack it). So I was just seeing if that was a possibility.....because oil does run around behind the cover correct?

Let's talk about what we know.

Coolant is leaking externally. This is not a head gasket typically. It's at the belt end of the motor, ok....let's find it.. visually. For it to sling off the belt, it must reach the belt. Look at the water pump. Now that you've found the water pump leaking, replace it. (call it ESP ) If it's not the water pump, then maybe the timing cover is cracked, even that..is not overly common unless it's a 97/98, since I didn't read that much. I dunno what year it is.

The crud on the oil cap is likely condensation from them driving 8 miles.

Originally Posted by BillBoost37

Let's talk about what we know.

Coolant is leaking externally. This is not a head gasket typically. It's at the belt end of the motor, ok....let's find it.. visually. For it to sling off the belt, it must reach the belt. Look at the water pump. Now that you've found the water pump leaking, replace it. (call it ESP ) If it's not the water pump, then maybe the timing cover is cracked, even that..is not overly common unless it's a 97/98, since I didn't read that much. I dunno what year it is.

The crud on the oil cap is likely condensation from them driving 8 miles.

I just figured it was also leaking internally because I had never noticed the crud build up in the oil cap before.

After it runs.. do you see a frothy milkshake on the dipstick? No.. I didn't think so. your build up is from the driving style.

Okey dokey. Well I cant see the weep hole but the lower motor mount is filled up with coolant and when I stick my hand under the water pump pulley it is really wet. So water pump time? Or should I pull the belts off and check for movement?

You are having the exact problem I had last week. Water pumps are cheap, and it was pretty simple to change.

Yeah I'll just go ahead and change it. I have done a water pump before on my trep and that thing took hours because it requires you to pull the whole front end apart and do the timing belt, so I'm looking forward to an easy job. lol Any suggested brands as far as water pump goes? I will be buying a brand new one.....my past experience is that the reman pumps suck.

I go down and buy whatever... oh wait.. I lied. I took a spare off the shelf and used that. Unknown all the way!

So autozone then? lol I'm just gonna pick up one of their duracrap ones and see how it works out for me.

Got the new pump put on today. Cut my hand about ten different times cleaning the gasket surface so that was fun. First time I put it all together and put coolant in it I noticed it was leaking out coolant, so I got to pull the belts back off and remove the S/C idler pulley, tighten the bolt, and then reassemble it. Now the fun comes...I go over and start the car and check for leaks, all clear. So three minutes later I run in the garage to get the jack to throw her back on the ground, as soon as I lay down I see coolant gushing all over the place. Come to find out the lower rad hose burst and was spewing out coolant. So I shut her off, picked my brother up from school, and then went to my second night of the STAR (attitudinal dynamics of driving) class. I get back home and lucky me, my mother and brother went ahead and changed the hose out by themselves! So I check for leaks, top off the coolant, and run her around the block.

So I told my brother to go ahead and drive it to school tomorrow and that when we get back we can check out the oil and then bleed the cooling system if it needs it....hopefully I'm done with this thing for a while!

That's a really cool story. Maybe it wasn't the pump, but the hose all along.