Thread: Leaking coolant in my 00 gt

I noticed today when I got to work as I was walking away from my car that i heard a sizzling noise. So I looked back at my car and saw steam (minimal amt) rising from under the hood and I could see a leak occurring from underneath my car on the drivers side near the front of the car. So I popped the hood and noticed what looked like water dripping down to the ground and a lot of my lines wet. Not sure what lines these are, if they're for the air condition or not. But they were wet and were dripping and so was the bottom part of the fan. I inspected the upper radiator hose and that looked and felt good. No nicks in that (it's also pretty new). My car hasn't been running hot at all and all my fluids were level.

As a side note, yesterday I was working on installing a wizaird box and noticed it wasn't fitting as nicely as I was expecting. It was used and slightly bent here and there but nothing that couldn't be bent back (typ sheet metal). Long story short I ended up taking it out because I was trying to make a custom intake tube for it because i had gotten just the air box without the tube from ebay. Anyways, I had no problem putting all the stock pieces back in place and reconnecting all/any sensors that got disconnected. But is there anyway I could have done something that cause this leak during the time of cai box installation? I wouldn't think so especially since I did a minor inspection to the hoses.

Any way I let the car run for a few min during lunch and didn't notice any overheating or leaking of any sort. But my coolant reservoir may look a bit low. Not to lie but I’m a bit confused where the level should be at on that. There two lines. A "cold" line & a "hot" line. Is that supposed to be a "min" & "max" line???

Anyways, sorry about the length of post, but if any of you have some insight that would be great.

P.S.
I just got this car from father in law who's a mechanic (transmission shop owner) and he babied the car so i know it wasn't ran like sh*t.

Well the hot and cold lines on the coolant res. are for levels when the car is dead cold, then fully hot.

You may have a leaking radiator. I had this issue and it turned out there was a small crack right at the neck where the upper hose attaches that would open up when hot then close back up as it bled off pressure. The only reason I found it is I happened to notice a small trail of dried up Dexcool running from it. Since the side tanks and necks are plastic on these cars its a good place to start. Not much over there besides the hose and thermostat. The only other place I've had leak is between the upper intake manifold and the lower right around the TB, but that was more of a steady drip and didn't cause any steam to form.

If you can't catch it leaking from somewhere I may suggest getting a pressure test done on the cooling system. It should show any cracks/leaks that way.

thanks for the heads up about the radiator leak. i didn't see any thing, but i just did a quick look since i was on my way into work. I'll take a look at it again later today.

Thanks for the advice. Once i got it home yesterday from work i popped the hood and was looking at it with the motor still running. Didn't see any leaks untill the second i shut off the car. Then noticed the leak on the driver's side part of the radiator. It was spraying/squirting out as if there was a cut/lasseration in a yard hose while the water was turned on full pressure. so i'm taking it to my father in law's shop today after work and will be putting it on the rack to get a better look at it. Seems like its the actual radiator. 11 year old car, so it's gotta go some time!

Yep, probably leaking where the side tank gets crimped onto the aluminum center section.

Originally Posted by The Guz

Same thing happened to mine a couple weeks ago. I just replaced my GT one with a new GTP one since the GTP one is a little thicker.

That's a good idea, wish i would have thought of that. It turned out to be a leak in the radiator itself. Around the corner of it on the drivers side of the radiator. We ordered the radiator and getting it in today, so i'll be putting it in tonight and back up and running!

My 2000 just did the same thing yesterday! Thanks for the info. Any suggestions on a good radiator for a stock GT 3.8?

I got mine off of Ebay. Just the stocker. Of course you can always go with the GTP rad. as mentioned.