Missing losing Coolant, where did it go

[tadaima]

I have a 85' Cressida and it is losing coolant and non-consistent times.

It will loose it's whole reserve tank in one drive, usually with long highway driving. There is no leak in the hoses that I can see or anything on the ground.

I am no blowing white exhaust after the engine is heated.

There is no water contaminants in the oil or oil in the coolant (that I can see).

Could this bee a small head gasket leak? The only thing I havent done is a pressure test, could it be the radiator cap? It is 19yrs old, I am thinking of replacing it anyways..

 

[sprintman]

Flick the radiator cap, the rubber will be cracked fer sure (I had same problem) and they cost nothing really. Any mechanical place or radiator repair shop you have a pump up pressure tester that goes where the rad cap fits and that is usually a surefire way to spot a leak, particularly if you have a bright coloured coolant. Good luck..s

 

[tadaima]

Thanks, well i bought the cap tonight..just need to wait till tommorow for things to cool and replace.

 

[tadaima]

Dan,

The heater core was a common problem in the cressidas'. Therefore the previous owner has already bypassed the heater core valve. So far it hasnt had any dissapearing coolant for the short highway trip I did today. Will be doing a longer trip tonight and see where that ends me with.

 

[Jim Spahr]

If the new cap doesn't stop the coolant loss, try finding a mechanic with the dye and black light system. The mech puts a small amt of dye in the radiator and runs the car for a while. Then they shine the black light on the engine comparment to 'see' the leak.

 

[tadaima]

Just took out the radiator cap this morning, WOW the original Nippon Denso Cap. Well the rubber gasket had some feathering around the gasket but no big chunks ripped out. The spring seemed significantly less resistant than the new one.

 

[Dan4510]

You can also have a leak in the heater core. It will weep, especially under pressure and lose coolant out of the water discharge for the a/c system while you are drving down the road.

Pressure testing will confirm this. It might be the cap, but might not on that old of a car. my newest car is a 1978, first thing I had to do was replace the radiator and flush the engine. The car only had 16k miles on it when I bought it 2 years ago and this still had to be done.

Dan

 

[tadaima]

Well, I think I might have a leaking head gasket now. I notice the symptom of white smoke in my car after letting it sit for like 15min. Coming off the freeway or after the car is warmed up while driving there isnt much at all, but if i let it sit and idle, it starts to puff white smoke after a bit...not too much, just a nice trail.

Can't see any overheating yet, nor missing in the engine. SO I think I will try Bar Stop Leak and retorque the Head bolts.

Didnt bother with smog since my timing was off, the last owner had this thing set at an advance of 23 degrees...factory is 10. I dont have a timing light so I backed it up a little bit by 2/8 of an inch. I heard 1/8 inch is about 6 - 7 degrees.

Well lets see how long this baby will last...just asking for about a year on it. It has 160K on it already. A 5mge engine from toyota.

 

[Propflux01]

if the head gasket's going, it won't last too long...

 

[labman]

A few years ago, my truck, 92 Grand Am, and my daughter's 90 Beretta all were losing coolant through the head gasket. I put off the inevitable for several years on all 3 with stop leak. The Beretta went to the junk yard leak and all. The other 2 eventually blew the gasket. I don't know if it would have helped, but I wish somebody would have told me to retorque the head gasket.

You are taking a chance, but may get away with it.

If you have a radiator cap, one sign of a head gasket leak is the failure to draw water back into the radiator from the overflow when the engine cools.

[ December 05, 2003, 10:51 AM: Message edited by: labman ]

 

[Drew99GT]

If the gasket is burned through to a water jacket, retorquing could potentially make the problem worse, and the 23 degrees of advance you speak of might have been the culprit. ie. DETONATION/high cylinder pressure. What ever you do, rest the timing correctly with a timing light. You can not simply gauge how many degrees you are moving the distributor, well, theoretically you could IF you knew exactly where the timing was already set. 1 degree om distributor movement equals 2 degrees of crankshaft rotation.

 

[tadaima]

Well I just moved the dristributor counterclockwise just a little bit about 1/4inch. Since the dist was pretty much maxed out on the clockwise motion, figure a little counterclockwise to retard it from 23degrees wouldnt hurt. Just need to get it away from the high combustion temps.

Bought some stopleak, but havent lost enough coolant to add it in. It seems to eat up a cup everyday. Everytime I add in more coolant in the reseve tank it 1/4 emptier by the end of the day.

Read some stuff called "Steel seal" which is suppose to repair BHG with some sort of 2hr procedure of running their magic water through the system.

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m3102/10_121/93212251/p1/article.jhtml

 

[Cressida]

With you loosing that much coolant it should show up soon. I wouldn't add the stop leak just yet until you are sure of what your problem is.

A minor leak is hard to find on the 5MGE's I know as I've had several including all that I've listed below: (Get out your best flashlight and inspection mirror and really take some time going over everything very carefully)

-There is a hidden hose that runs under the intake manifold going under and behind the t-state housing back toward the firewall. You may have to remove the distributor to get a good look at the end connection.

- The lower radiator hose connection at the water pump is up under the power steering pump.

- The metal pipe connection up under the exhaust side head. This is up above the lower radiator hose mentioned above. It is almost impossible to see from above even with a mirror and light. Easier to see if you remove the oil filter and look up from below.

- Heater core could be suspect. A leaking heater core will probably never show up at the evaporator drain hose on this model as some mentioned. (It will leak on the carpet on passanger side of the transm. hump)

- Check the hose going from the back top of the head (near the #6 spark plug) over to the heater control valve.

- A small weeping from the water pump will catch and accumulate on the engine undercover making detection harder to find as it may blow away during driving speed and never show on the pavement.

- I wouldn't advance timing any more than 14 or 15 degrees BTDC. (I'd start at 12 and make sure to short the electrical connection before checking)

Again don't dump in stop leak products yet if you haven't already done so. It would be a good time to do a used oil analysis to see if coolant shows up in the oil sample.

Have you or ANY passengers noticed any different smells lately? My kids complained for over a month before I found my heater core leaking. I dismissed their comments far too easily.

Keep us posted on what you find if anything.

Although the head gasket could be leaking it is much more common on the 7MGE engines.

[ December 07, 2003, 01:23 PM: Message edited by: Cressida ]

 

[tadaima]

Cressida,

WOW very thorough, well unfortunately I added the stop leak already. It did seem to take the immediate leak out, and I stop blowing white smoke. I didnt blow a lot of white smoke, but if I sat around for 15min or so with the car off and stateded again, there would be a small trail of white smoke.

Now it is gone.

Though it could be because it just got sunny. Anyways..I did notice some coolant above the Charcoal Canister, above that is the heater control valve and hoses. The previous owner had a bypass in the system. With the car off and cooled down, I didnt see anything leaking, I also squeezed the tubes, but nothing came out...I tried watching for it when the car was on, but nothing. Well didnt look the like the previous owner used a metal pipe to bypass, but some weird polymer tubing. Think I'll replace it with aluminum or something.

I'll keep everyone up to date on the progress. Though at least I know that Stop leak is keeping the resevior from dropping. I was loosing 1 cup a day from a 5-10mi drive. Today I have driven up to 100mi trip plus 30mi yesterday and I've only probably loss a tablespoon to what is on top of the charcoal canister, looks like I may be dealing with more than one leak.

 

[SHOZ]

AutoZone has a cooling system pressurizer you can rent for free. Take this home, hook it up
and you will find your leak.

 

[tadaima]

Here are my plugs from the 1st three cylinders, not in any particular order.

http://www.geocities.com/tadaimaz/sp.jpg

You will NEED to COPY and PASTE the link.

What do you think?

 

[tadaima]

Looks like these plugs has seen the effects of the timing being advanced from 10* to 23*. Does everyone concur?

 

[tadaima]

HAHAHA...well found out the leak was really small, and was coming from where the heater valve was bypassed by the last owner. What did he use to bypass the heater valve you ask? The Plastic tubing that makes up a child's marker. It was on the verge of collapsing i guess and was only leaking probably when i was driving.