Looking for advice on coolant loss

toddr124

toddr124

Hagerstown, MD
Here are the symptoms;

1. I use about a quart of coolant every 200 miles.
2. The car is very rough on start up whether the car is warm or cold. Feels like 3 cylinders are working.
3. When I back out of the garage when the car starts to run smoothly after 2-3 minutes I smell antifreeze.
4. There is not puddle ever on the ground from the antifreeze.
5. I have replaced all the hoses, clamps and the radiator in the last year.

I think I know what needs to be done, but I would like other opinions.
 
smell antifreeze?

First of all, if you smell antifreeze, to me it sounds like an external leak instead of the internal leaking inside the engine what you probably refer to.. I would say, if you can smell it, it means it should show somewhere.

Do you smell antifreeze inside the car as well? could be the heater control valve or the little radiator, under the dashboard at the passenger's side. I had a leak there once, drained the carpet. easy and cheap to replace.

best,
Frank
 
How about the thermostat?

Have you replaced it recently? Some of the early emissions equipped cars required the proper gasket to keep coolant from entering the EGR port. Of course, I think that would be causing a lot more coolant loss.

Here is a thread from Xweb 1.0:
http://www.network54.com/Forum/12159/message/1133320021

How's your oil look? Does it look like oil? Or a milkshake? :(
 
sounds like sloooow head gasket leak

had a ford that did same thing, no external leaks, and yea you could smell coolant after it ran a bit- it was in vapor form coming out the tailpipe. You really need to pressurize the cooling system, and look for leaks, sometimes you will get leaks so small, that they will allow steam to release, but not liquid. You'll find them by pressure testing, you can usually rent a tester at your local AP store78
I'm not big on snake oil products, but if you want to try to buy some time, try Prestone Block sealer, it worked for me, and bought me about 30,000 miles. You have to follow the directions to the T though, (flush system, run sealer, drain system, and allow to completely dry out. It's worth the $10.00 to try
Kevin
 
sounds like a head gasket to me. takes a couple minutes to burn off the water in the cylinder before it fires and runs properly. just had that problem with 2 different acura integras. kids sure are hard on cars...
 
Thanks for the advice

Sorry for the delay in answering. I have been traveling.

I had the cooling system professionally pressured checked and there are no leaks.

There is no antifreeze smell in the car unless I am in backing up while it is running rough.

I have been told I need a new head gasket, but I was hoping I was wrong. I will look into the block sealer and try to see some reviews on it. I like snake oil fixes. This is how I fixed the steering racks in 2 Alfa 164s.
 
What to look for...

Next time you go to use it after a night's rest, remove plugs and inspect them. One or more may look cleaner than the others, this will be the cylinder not working (it gets steam cleaned) 100%.

If you have the tools, you could also look into the cylinders one at a time as you crank the motor by hand, when the piston of a cylinder is at tdc, you may be able to spot coolant on the piston through the spark plug hole.

Do this before driving, as the coolant boils off quickly. :sad:
 
Do it right, replace the head gasket. You wouldn't bother patching bald tires, why patch a blown headgasket? Its :mallet: :wacko:!
 
This train of thought makes Duc Tape near obsolete!

Seriously though, you are totally right, I wouldn't want to use block sealer anyway, what happens if the gasket is gone and you seal a water port shut?
 
Hold on! One more thing to check...

I had a similar problem with rough idle, but I wasn't using quite that much coolant. You didn't state whether or not you had a carbed or FI model. My 82 Fi had a bad/ leaking intake runner gasket. There are cooling ports in the head that are normally blocked by the gasket, but mine were allowing coolant under pressure to enter the intake runner. This especially caused problems on a hot restart. Ran like crap for about a minute until the coolant was burnt off. I initially panicked and thought it was a head gasket, but the folks here came to the rescue! Hope this helps...
Jim in Atlanta
 
JDExSquid said:
I had a similar problem with rough idle, but I wasn't using quite that much coolant. You didn't state whether or not you had a carbed or FI model. My 82 Fi had a bad/ leaking intake runner gasket. There are cooling ports in the head that are normally blocked by the gasket, but mine were allowing coolant under pressure to enter the intake runner. This especially caused problems on a hot restart. Ran like crap for about a minute until the coolant was burnt off. I initially panicked and thought it was a head gasket, but the folks here came to the rescue! Hope this helps...
Jim in Atlanta
Click to expand...

Mine is an 87 with fuel injection. What is a intake runner gasket? I will go to my service manual and try to find out. Thanks for the new idea.

Okay, I give up. What is an Intake Runner Gasket and what page of the X1/9 service manual is it on?
 
Last edited:
Below the intake plenum

there are two pairs of aluminum tubes. The fuel injectors plug into these tubes. Sorry, I may have gotten the nomenclature wrong! The gasket is the intake/exhaust gasket. You'll need two gaskets; a left and a right side. I got mine from Bayless, but all of our favorite suppliers carry them. I tried to find it locally, but the local parts houses carry only the carbed version of the intake/exhaust gasket.

Jim in Atlanta
 
Thamks for the help

I can try this myself in a few hours later this week. I need to remove these parts anyway for a head gasket.:)
 
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