‘91 FJ 80 with 230k on the meter.
So my 80 started puking coolant from the passenger side the other day. Didn’t notice it until I was driving home and the needle started to move towards the red. My 80 has never had cooling problems, even in 110° desert heat wheeling in sand... and this all happened in a 5 minute drive in town, at night, at 80 degrees outside. Was able to limp it home without the gauge going into the red. Got out to a large puddle under the passenger side.
Basically running down the inlet hose/lower rad hose. Almost no drips on the driver side other than what ran down the steering and came off over there. Huge puddle on the pax side.
Refilled the rad with distilled water (needed almost a gallon and a half) the next day and let it idle back up to temp. No leak. Decided to drive around the block until it started getting hot, 20min later, never got hot
Decided to pull everything off down to the water pump (what a PITA job...) hoping for an obvious source of the leak. That didn’t happen.
Wasn’t much left of the water pump gasket, but even if it was leaking from that, it seems like a leak there would flow towards the driver side, or at least directly below the water pump, with the big hump from the block below it.... I think.
The metal piece that connects the two pieces of the inlet hose looks like it has some old coolant on it and may have been leaking from the top hose. (Pic below) This was also my theory to begin with, and still is for the most part.
The T-stat housing also looks like it was leaking from the picture, but I’m 99% sure that’s from when I pulled it and some residual coolant came out and dried (this was a multi-day project getting everything off)The tstat gasket was in good shape and looked probably somewhat new, at least compared to the water pump gasket.
The plan right now is to replace all the hoses and gaskets (after cleaning all the mating surfaces) then put it all back together and hope it doesn’t leak... I’m just not a huge fan of NOT actually having been able to identify the exact problem.
Also wondering if I should just go ahead and replace the water pump while I’m here.. it turns without a hint of roughness or noise.... but I really don’t want to have to do this job again.
Is there anything I may have overlooked or should delve into a little more?
So my 80 started puking coolant from the passenger side the other day. Didn’t notice it until I was driving home and the needle started to move towards the red. My 80 has never had cooling problems, even in 110° desert heat wheeling in sand... and this all happened in a 5 minute drive in town, at night, at 80 degrees outside. Was able to limp it home without the gauge going into the red. Got out to a large puddle under the passenger side.
Basically running down the inlet hose/lower rad hose. Almost no drips on the driver side other than what ran down the steering and came off over there. Huge puddle on the pax side.
Refilled the rad with distilled water (needed almost a gallon and a half) the next day and let it idle back up to temp. No leak. Decided to drive around the block until it started getting hot, 20min later, never got hot
Decided to pull everything off down to the water pump (what a PITA job...) hoping for an obvious source of the leak. That didn’t happen.
Wasn’t much left of the water pump gasket, but even if it was leaking from that, it seems like a leak there would flow towards the driver side, or at least directly below the water pump, with the big hump from the block below it.... I think.
The metal piece that connects the two pieces of the inlet hose looks like it has some old coolant on it and may have been leaking from the top hose. (Pic below) This was also my theory to begin with, and still is for the most part.
The T-stat housing also looks like it was leaking from the picture, but I’m 99% sure that’s from when I pulled it and some residual coolant came out and dried (this was a multi-day project getting everything off)The tstat gasket was in good shape and looked probably somewhat new, at least compared to the water pump gasket.
The plan right now is to replace all the hoses and gaskets (after cleaning all the mating surfaces) then put it all back together and hope it doesn’t leak... I’m just not a huge fan of NOT actually having been able to identify the exact problem.
Also wondering if I should just go ahead and replace the water pump while I’m here.. it turns without a hint of roughness or noise.... but I really don’t want to have to do this job again.
Is there anything I may have overlooked or should delve into a little more?