M42club.com - Home of the BMW E30/E36 318i/iS
DISCUSSION => General Topics => Topic started by: dblmikeusa1 on February 15, 2009, 09:17:18 PM
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I have a coolant leak coming from somewhere...
Here is what it is doing... Leaking from above, at the backside of the engine bay. Coolant is rolling down the passenger side of the transmission and dripping from the point where it meets up with the engine, making tracing the starting point difficult.
I have tried to feel around the coolant hoses at the intake area, but have not found anything...
Any ideas?
What makes this even weirder is it does not always leak... it is random and when it does leak, the puddle size is usually no bigger than a silver dollar.
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heater hoses good?
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My guess would be the plastic pipe under the intake manifold. It is known to get brittle with heat cycles and eventually crack and fail. If you don't know what I'm talking about, search for "mess under the intake." You might as well delete the TB heater like in the thread and replace all of the old vacuum hoses, being in Texas and all. Do you have any leakage in the passenger foot well, carpet damp? That tends to be the most common symptom of a leaky heater core / hoses. It could be a few things, but pulling the intake manifold and checking that plastic pipe is a good start, because if it completely fails, it wouldn't take long for things to go south, fast.
Edit: I missed your last bit about it being a tiny amount. Are you sure that it is coolant and not just condensation from the AC system?
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It ended up being the hose at the back side of the head. It was busted at the top.