Thermostat I think

[archerobx]

Have been having an antifreeze smell on the outside my car. I looked all over cant find any leaks. I am loosing alittle coolant. Felt the floor and firewall for a leak, ran the defrost for awhile and found nothing. No noises, gauges all are within normal limits, engine sounds fine.
Today I looked at the thermostat and there is a greenish crust around the seal, figure its dried antifreeze. Should I go and replace the thermostat and the housing seal or just the seal? Also does this sound like the solution to the problem I mentioned.

Than you

 

[Lloyd10977]

Have been having an antifreeze smell on the outside my car. I looked all over cant find any leaks. I am loosing alittle coolant. Felt the floor and firewall for a leak, ran the defrost for awhile and found nothing. No noises, gauges all are within normal limits, engine sounds fine.
Today I looked at the thermostat and there is a greenish crust around the seal, figure its dried antifreeze. Should I go and replace the thermostat and the housing seal or just the seal? Also does this sound like the solution to the problem I mentioned.

Than you

Changing your thermostat is likely a good idea, especially if you do not know when it was done last. Try to make sure that you buy one that remain open if it fails. Cheap insurance. Also carefully check the heater control valve. These are a sore point of failures on Fords because the leak only occurs under full pressure when an internal seal fails and sometimes it leaves little or no evidence. I have had to replace mine twice in 3 years.

 

[shamaal]

Go ahead and replace the thermostat along with the seal. I had the same problem and discovered some ham handed technician stripped one of the bolts that had to be heli-coiled.

And this is after the son-of-a-gun told me he had changed the thermostat, so I went chasing the problem elsewhere when it was the thermostat all along.

 

[BrooklynBay]

Welcome to this forum! Get a cooling system pressure tester from Autozone's free loaner tool program (deposit required which is refundable when you return it). It will help you locate where the leak is without any guess work.