I've had a minor coolant leak on the '02 LSE for going on a month now. In the past month I've slowly lost the contents of the coolant reservoir, between 2-3 quarts. I haven't been able to find any wet spots in the engine bay. After a week or so I get a small puddle on the garage floor, can't seem to find anything dripping. So tonight I took it out on about a ten mile ride with some full throttle pulls, came home and I have some wet spots. It appears the coolant is spraying rearwards on an angle towards the drivers side. The top of the alternator stabilizing bracket is wet as well as the top of the intake tube and drivers side wiper cowl, I lost maybe 1/4" of coolant on that drive. While the thermostat housing isn't wet I'm thinking it may be spraying out the back side of it under heavier load. I've put three thermostats in this car in a little over a year and I'll admit I've been reusing the gasket. One of those thermostats was changed a month ago when this issue started.
Tomorrow I'm going to grab a new gasket and see if that does any good. I will say that I've torqued the thermostat housing bolts to 20ft lbs per what I've found online on each occasion. I'm really not sure where else it could be coming from. I don't believe it's that dreaded line under the intake because I don't think it could spray way over to the drivers wiper cowl, also I don't see any liquid down in the valley of the block when shining a light in there. I do have the intake with the aluminum crossover, so I'm hoping it's not leaking there, again I don't think that would spray as high and left as what I'm getting.
If anyone has any other suggestions let me know, per records I have from the previous owner all hoses were changed in the summer of 2018 at 90,000 ish miles. I don't know if that includes the one under the intake but it doesn't look 19 years old. I don't know what the deal was with this car but I have records showing extensive engine and suspension work was performed by a Ford dealer in Akron Oh between 40,000-75,000 miles. Work that shouldn't have been done at the mileage listed, I don't feel like listing everything but at 75,000 miles this thing practically got new gaskets from the oil pan up. Other than thermostats and an alternator it's been trouble free for the almost year and a half I've had it. I'm thinking it was owned by an elderly person that had money and this dealer knew they could make money lying about nonexistent issue. Say what you will but I've seen it happen, we have a local Chevy dealer who's head mechanic is known around town as "Head gasket Dan." I don't care what problem you have he'll tell you you need head gaskets and he'll do the job for only $2500. People fall for it all the time.
Tomorrow I'm going to grab a new gasket and see if that does any good. I will say that I've torqued the thermostat housing bolts to 20ft lbs per what I've found online on each occasion. I'm really not sure where else it could be coming from. I don't believe it's that dreaded line under the intake because I don't think it could spray way over to the drivers wiper cowl, also I don't see any liquid down in the valley of the block when shining a light in there. I do have the intake with the aluminum crossover, so I'm hoping it's not leaking there, again I don't think that would spray as high and left as what I'm getting.
If anyone has any other suggestions let me know, per records I have from the previous owner all hoses were changed in the summer of 2018 at 90,000 ish miles. I don't know if that includes the one under the intake but it doesn't look 19 years old. I don't know what the deal was with this car but I have records showing extensive engine and suspension work was performed by a Ford dealer in Akron Oh between 40,000-75,000 miles. Work that shouldn't have been done at the mileage listed, I don't feel like listing everything but at 75,000 miles this thing practically got new gaskets from the oil pan up. Other than thermostats and an alternator it's been trouble free for the almost year and a half I've had it. I'm thinking it was owned by an elderly person that had money and this dealer knew they could make money lying about nonexistent issue. Say what you will but I've seen it happen, we have a local Chevy dealer who's head mechanic is known around town as "Head gasket Dan." I don't care what problem you have he'll tell you you need head gaskets and he'll do the job for only $2500. People fall for it all the time.
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