When I step out of my truck on the driver side there is a strong smell of antifreeze. It has been going on for several months now. The coolant is not dropping. There is no leak that I can find. The truck is very well maintained and dry as a bone on the top and bottom of the truck.

I cannot smell it inside the truck. I cannot smell it in the engine compartment. I cannot smell it under the truck. I can not smell it green eggs and ham. Only when I stand near the driver side door.

Of note: it is definitely antifreeze.

Any thoughts would be great.

Tom

 

Had the same situation for a long time. Found a leak by my oil filter. It is coming from above it and running down the filter. The last time I replaced the filter I thought it was a oil leak. No puddles but a strong coolant smell. I also have a small leak at the thermostat housing. It is intermediate and no puddles.

 

I catch a whiff of coolant around mine sometimes. Just like you, after I drive it and step out of the drivers side. Not all the time, just on the 6th monday of the month under a full moon if the wind is blowing just right. I cant find any leaks either. I just write it off as another cool truck smell. I figure its coming from the overflow jug, and under just the right conditions I can smell it.

 

Since its a closed system,, i might be looking a little closer ,,

Sam I Am....

 

This info is a bit dated but waaaay back when we were buying 95-96 trucks new (I manage a small fleet) we used to start smelling anti freeze somewhere between 25-50K miles and it didnt take long to figure out if yhou couldnt find a leak anywhere you had better put a water pump on it. The way those pumps were made you would never see a drip but you would smell it and then one day ka-woosh they would suddenly spew out coolant faster than you could pour it in. The reason I say this is dated is it comes to me the pump design was changed at some point? Get under the truck with a light and look carefully behind the water pump pulley for signs of coolant.

 

I've had the same odor coming from mine and it finally surfaced after I pressurized the cooling system with the engine off. It took a while for it to get to the ground but there it was. Oil cooler on the side of the block. It only keaked when hot, so pressurize it both dead cold and hot.

You can smell it long before you see it because it's evaporating before making a puddle. The nose knows. "Sam am am."

 

Same thing here, but I never investigated further beyond astablishing none was hitting the ground. Coolant level in overflow tank drops ever so slightly and have to top off avery 3 - 4 months or so.
When it is warm out, I look in the suggested places.
Anyone have anything against Barr's Leak, etc. for small seepages of this nature? Just curious. I have used it on my gassers from time to time with no apparent ill effects and a reasonably high success rate.

 

I will get a better look under the truck this weekend. Thanks for pointing me in a few directions. I will let ya'll know what I find!

Tom

 

Mine did that too evantually I relized it was the water pump, bearly even a trickle at the weep hole but I could smell the antifreeze, put in new NAPA pump and no more smell.....

 

Don't do it. I get more plugged heater cores and radiators because of that crap. Here is a better product. Morosso Block Sealer. I use it in all my race engines because it's ceramic based. Helps shed some heat and keeps high compression engine head gaskets from popping. I even used it on a blown head gasket (old, lost cause car). That was 6 years ago and it's still used every day delivering mail.

Be sure to follow the instructions carefully. It only works with water, not antifreeze until after treatment.
Moroso 35500 - Moroso Ceramic Engine Seal - summitracing.com

 

I used that barrs leak sealer, I think it was a huge mistake,,,,,,, here is what happen, it worked leak stop but the bad I found out much later when I had to take the oil cooler off for new o-rings , inside the cooler are long tubes and all of them were plugged solid with the Barrs leak stuff. I believe it was the barrs leak but I also heard that over charging the sca will do the same, but with out proof I'll never use the Barrs stuff or any other stoip leak again,,,,,,,,,,

 

My brother used to work on cooling systems. He and his colleauges always called the stuff "Bars Heat", for its legendary capacity to plug up heater cores.

IIRC, the PSD has a reservoir with a large pressure cap, that's part of the pressurized system. It can be hard to find a pressure tester to match the opening of the reservoir. My Saturn has a similar system, and I devised my own tester using a retired cap, with a hole drilled in it and a valve from a retired bicycle innertube put through the hole. Install the cap in place of the one in service, use a bike tire pump to build up pressure, voila, pressure tester.

 

Thanks for the tips on "cures in a can". I'll look around for some of that Morrosso BLock sealer and give it a try and report back.