2000 5.0 AWD Coolant Leak Mystery

[nameskreen]

I don't remember how old they are, but I did replace them a while back. I was thinking it was a hose or a rotted tube on the water pump, but the leak is somewhere beneath those

 

[CDW6212R]

I don't remember how old they are, but I did replace them a while back. I was thinking it was a hose or a rotted tube on the water pump, but the leak is somewhere beneath those

If the leak is forward near the front of the WP, look below the shaft of the WP. There is a weep hole in the housing of the WP, where leaking past the seals will come out.

 

[nameskreen]

You were right. I took the fan out and the water pump pulley off and I saw it leaking out of the weep hole. I didn't think it would leak there that fast.

 

[CDW6212R]

Good to know where the leak is, ... but now it means the water pump bolts have to come out. Get ready and be slow and patient with those bolts. If they don't let go easily, if they seem to be very tight, I'd plan to try some radical procedure to loosen them.

When the WP bolts are out, changing the WP isn't bad. But every bolt that break is a huge PITA. I'd read up on how others have heated the bolts prior to loosening them, and other ways. But the jumper cable trick to short current through a bolt sounds promising. I'll be reading up and see if that has any merit, I have at least one broken bolt in mine to fight when I get back to it.

 

[nameskreen]

Yeah, I'm having someone do it for me who has experience, so hopefully everything goes good.

 

[BUXTER]

I'd look harder around the water pump, and the thermostat housing. It's easy to have the thermostat fall down while installing the housing, which places the T-stat between the housing and the intake.

Keep looking, you should be able to find the source of the leak.

DITTO... & THEN its easy to crack Thermostat Housing when u snug up fasteners when u didn't catch that Thermostat slipped down fm recess in Housing,,, been there done that.