ive only had my 96 mark 8 for 2 weeks and only drove it twice because of an oil leak anf front air shocks are bad. i changed the oil filter adapter gasket today and was going to drive the car to work but soon after i left home it started getting hot. i topped off antifreeze after gasket change. i pulled in wal mart and it was leaking coolant bad from both sides of front bumper. i filled it, drove it home and on ramps. filled it again and reservoir went empty pretty quick but didnt see it come out anywhere. couldnt see where it came from earlier either. i did have water or coolant dripping down from passenger side catalytic converter from somewhere. any ideas where my leak might be guys ?
help with magic coolant leak
- Thread starter cf99gt
- Start date
turborich
Dedicated LVC Member
Did you fill it from the cross over tube under the plastic engine cover? If not then that's your problem. You don't fill it from the plastic resivoir. whatever you do, don't get her hot or you could have many more problems.
i took the engine cover off. what cross over tube ? yeah i did try to fill it using the reservoir. it got hotter than normal, almost to top line. but it didnt get near the H. why did using the reservoir make it do that ??
98CobraStarLSC
Dedicated LVC Member
when you have air in the cooling system you need to vent it at the highest point in the cooling system, since air will rise to the top.. On our cars, the coolant crossover tube is the highest easily accessible point. Its easy to see, it basically is a black tube that is right in front of the intake manifold and ties across both heads. Its a hard tube with a plug in it you have to use a ratchet head to open it. So fill it there and let it burp.
you cant trust the guage, because the coolant system wasn't full..so the guage couldn't possibly given you "never reached the H".
It could have easily gotten far hotter than the guage indicated.
The sensor for the guage is in the crossover tube, unless the tube was full the guage didn't stand a chance of telling you anything close to accurate.
the fill procedure is well documented in many posts.
I suggest fill.. warm the engine
Let it cool for a hour or so.. then fill again..
Repeat this step a few times until you cannot add any more coolant