Thoughts on coolant leaks

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All,

I am inspecting a possible '04 purchase. The truck had a timing belt done about 15k miles ago and clearly the mechanic used green coolant. Ignoring this fact I noticed some potential leaks in the following areas. Whatre your thoughts on the sources? I'd hate to buy a truck and have to go fix everything that was just done. It's unfortunate the level of workmanship at most places these days... Pictures are in two different locations, a silver union over the power steering pulley on the passenger side, and what looks like a location in-line with the fan clutch.

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Generally, if I seek coolant leaks as a buyer, it's best to assume and plan for the worst. If the source of the leak was easy/cheap to fix, the seller would have done it. At a minimum, I would suggest a PPI and/or making an offer to the seller, recognizing you may need to have the service completed again (or worse if you have a headgasket issue, etc.) and being prepared to fix it if its bad.

It might be coming from the T-stat housing but that is just a guess.
 
The leaks near the powersteering pump are probably power steering fluid, that big union bolt thing used a crush washer of sorts, it may just be ready for a new one, or was taken loose and reattached with the old washers, sometimes they reseal okay. If it is coolant, there is the water passage and upper radiator hose going on there. There is also a small coolant hose above there that brings coolant from the head over to the throttle body or something. The leak lower on the drivers side is probably that little set of coolant hoses and metal line right in front of it. They take coolant to the oil cooler. They are all preformed hoses, Toyota only I suppose. Seems those little hoses get pretty loose/stretched over time and leak pretty easily on the slick metal tubes. The clamps could have lost some clampiness too.

The waterpump is buried on these. There is a weep hole that comes out, buried up underneath behind the AC compressor area. When I did my timing belt and water pump for good measure, I'm glad I planned on replacing it, because there was Toyota pink residue behind the waterpump pulley and starting to drift out of the weep hole, but it had not failed or ever leaked enough to be visible out of the long weep hole tunnel to the outside. The fan clutch pulley is a just a false bracket that bridges over the waterpump and timing belt area. It is nothing more than a bearing that carries the fan and fan clutch. If that bearing is rough, just replace the unit.

I see oil residue on the valve cover areas and near the covers over the ends of the cams, (the black plastic cover), that could be signs of either valve cover leakage, or cam seals leaking. If they were not serviced with the timing belt, that is unfortunate. Luckily that is an 04 without the VVTI, so you just pull the cam pulleys and put the seals in. My 05 has the VVTI and you have to completely remove all the camshafts, take the VVTI part off, slip on the seal, replace the cams and then push the seal into place on the head, pretty big job.

After nearly 200,000 miles on my T100 with a 5VZFE, when I do the timing belt, I just do the waterpump too. Why waste time with the whole front of the engine apart over a $100 waterpump. I use the Aisan kits off Rock Auto, OEM parts, half the price of Toyota. Good to do the idle pulleys on the timing belt too, another $70, but you know they are good for another 100K.

I guess see if they only did a belt, or they did more. These can have a leak on the upper radiator hose attachment point. That is sealed with grey silicon to the waterpump, no gasket. The FSM is adamant you use the special Toyota/Aisin stuff, could have used cheap sealant.
 

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