So the other day I go and park the truck running errands. come back out an hour later and theirs fluid leaking on the front drivers side its coming down off the lower radiator hose. checked the hose, clamp good, hose not cracked and fairly new. I couldnt tell the color of the fluid and it didnt taste/smell like gasser anti-freeze (I havent tasted ford gold so dont know if its sweet like regular anti-freeze... god im prob going to get **** for my redneck fluid check HA)
it tasted more like power steering fluid or brake fluid. which when i pulled the intake filter off the power steering box was "wet" but the levels were good on the power steering fluid.

my coolant level however was a little low, topped it off with some water temprarily and went on my way. well this morning i checked the levels (3 days after topping off w/ water) and the coolants alarmingly low so i filled it back up with ford-gold this time. my EOT and WT are within specs. so im just at a loss here I cant tell if maybe its because I filled it with water and it burned it off? or what.
I initially thought because it has fairly new hoses and that the temperature drop caused the hose to become loose and was leaking under pressure before warming up and expanding but its got that crappy pinch-hose-clamp on there so i dont know. no signs of leaking (that i could tell) at the coolant intake at the block.

Im about to take a 1000 mile round trip with this tuck, on fri, its still under warranty so at least i got that on my side, does anyone have any input on this and what it could be?

 

oh if it means anything Ive been running my heater alot lately too dont think its the heater core but maybe its somehow related?

 

jesse, have u noticed any white stains around ur degas bottle cap? is it puking coolant from there? have u parked ur car on a downward incline and pulled ur egr valve yet? if the inside of ur egr valve housing is wet or moist, then u got a blown egr cooler. in any case, if ur egr cooler is out, then it's also time to replace ur oil cooler as well.

 

No puking at all and I havent checked the EGR yet but I monitor it and its my EOT and WT spread are less than 15 so iunno. I dont really have the tools to do it anymore, my tool box got jacked out of my truck... ill see what i can do with my old ladys tools HA

 

actually, ur eot AND ect must be in a 15 degrees spread, not the WT. btw, wat the heck is a WT? lol. is tat code for some lunchtime quickie? hehehehehe.

sorry to hear bout ur toolbox being jacked. to ensure tat ur egr valve comes out easier, when u got it all hooked up and ready to pull it out, make sure u yell, "by the power of grayskull" while pulling the egr valve, then it will. it worked for me.

best of luck in ur findings. post them up and i'm sure the other guys will chime in. have a fantastic day pal!

 

lol ok.. and WT water temp ie coolant temp. and no anything more than a 15 degree spread is bad. everything in between is good, it does not have to be a 15 degree spread...

 

if your coolant levels are going down and your seeing wet spots on the ground, odds are pretty good you have a coolant leak and not anything else.

Coolant leaking at the front drivers side? 9 times out of 10 it's the radiator hose rubbing on the steering box. Could also be the t-stat housing leaking, or something in that neighborhood.

 

Just beat me to the punch, but I had our diesel mech look at it here at work and he said its wet or in his words "moist" around the pullys and probably the water pump leaking, so I think Im going to take it on this trip and carry some coolant and a jerry can of water, unless you all advise against it...

 

I think as a precaution im going to change all the POS tension style hose clamps to the ones that you tighten down manually, just because I read a couple of posts where the tension style clamps were leaking on the lower hose and up on the T stat. Thanks guys

 

You could always get some UV coolant die to help diagnose it.

 

Matbe it has something to do with all those X-Mas lights you have on it

Watch it close on your trip try to keep it at 50/50 mix or it will rust away

 

LMAO Yea I still have to get some pics of that on here but I really didnt put on that Many yea Im going to pre mix one of the jerry cans. and another with strait water just in case but iv gone a few days with no change in coolant level so Iunno, we shall see Ill probably UV when i get back or while im at my destination, ill keep you guys posted! THANKS and merry Xmas, or Happy holidays!!!!

 

Just an up date. got to my parents house in Nor-Cal (500 miles), drove for a couple weeks popped a P0404 and P0405 code, luckily got a gift card to Sears and bought a new tool set, pulled the EGR (which was caked with soot BTW) looked down in the intake was wet (which looked like oil...). re-assembled, codes cleared, and said a prayer as I drove back to So-Cal.
well on the grapevine, truck would sputter under load, checkd fluid (thought it was trans because thats what my POS chevy did) and found my coolant almost gone, topped off and monitored temps. took it to the dealer and they ran a diag, said at a minimum a blown Oil cooler and will pull apart the EGR cooler and more than likely replace.. I love how they also said they were going to check some other stuff and clean the turbo whil they were at it.

so glad I got the extended warranty!

 

What extended warranty do you have? doing want to go too far OT but I couldn't find one that covered any of that stuff. The only ones I found covered only what was between oil pan and heads.

 

Ill have to get back to you on the exact one but it covers damn near everything, even includes up to 30.00 for a rental car up to 300.00.