The story goes....

My truck was parked from Jan 6th until the end of March with a blown TN bushed turbo. When I recieved the new turbo, I installed it with much crawling around on top of the engine bay as many of us have done, some more than others. Upon taking it out for the shakedown drive, I noticed it was now leaking coolant at a steady pace. So much that in 3 days it had puked almost all of it out. My first guess was that the thermostat had finally failed as it was the original, so I have since replaced it with a Riley 203* unit and a billet housing, as well as getting the hose to reroute around the belt. Upon refilling the system with 4 gallons of nice FleetCharge Premixed SCA Coolant, it started leaking before I even finished filling with the fourth gallon. The drain plug is tight, but the coolant appears to be coming from the drivers side of the radiator, as it was running from that area only previous to starting and running the truck. FYI, I have NOT pressure tested the system, FYI. I gotta believe it's from the radiator, or possibly the overflow/fill tank, but I'd think a tank problem would be more obvious. No such issues before or during it's long rest period this last few months, but then suddenly.... Could I have damaged something crawling around up there during my third turbo swap? Could the Spearco 6.0 IC have anything to do with the issue, even though it's been in the truck since last spring? Looking for some solid insight as to how I should continue. I noticed new radiators are not that expensive, around $200 most places. But I don't want to just keep swapping parts out trying to find the source. Should I pressure test and report back? Any ideas fellow PSD'ers?

 

I would do the pressure test and see what you have.

 

If it's starting to leak just from you filling it then it sounds like you have a hole. I've always been scared of crawling around on top of the truck for that reason. If you let it leak down until it quits dripping, then add a little more water to it you could take a blow gun with an air compressor, wrap a rag around the fill pipe and put some low pressure air in there to help find the source. You'll either get a mist spraying out or hear it bubbling.

Let us know what you find.

 

If in the process of working on the engine, you put too much pressure on the radiator,, you might have cracked a seam.