Coolant system woes

[WestCoastSVX]

My ongoing issues with the coolant system continue. It's scattered among old threads in here but I thought I'd start fresh here up to date and maybe get some fresh ideas. I know this is long but I want to provide details....

September 2008 the car started randomly overheating and slowly losing coolant over time, etc. In the end it was diagnosed as a headgasket failure.

Was actually able to drive the car 20 miles to work and back and baby it for another month until Young Tom made his cross country road trip. He resealed the entire engine, including headgasket, and added newly machined heads. He also dropped in a new PWR radiator and radiator hoses I had sitting around. November 2008.

November 2008 the car was fine for about a week and then seemed to be leaking coolant again. I dropped it off at a shop to get an alignment. When the shop drove the car in, something exploded under the hood and dumped a gallon of coolant on their floor. They found a punctured hose up under the intake manifold and repaired everything for me.

All winter the car ran fine and coolant levels stayed at the top. But I continued to smell coolant in the car, especially when the heater was on, and even out the exhaust after a drive. At one point took it into a shop with the idea that it might be the heater core, but they tested and inspected everything they could within an hour's labor and didn't find problems.

June 2009 After I left for work my wife noticed a small puddle of coolant in the garage. I checked and the levels were fine. I cleaned it up and there never was another puddle, levels never dropped.

July 2009 Came home from work, car had been running fine. Came out into the garage 2 hours later and a huge puddle (gallon) of coolant spreading out through the garage! Found a tiny hole in one of the hoses from the waterpump (pump new in Nov, assuming old hose though it wasn't stiff or anything). Replaced with Napa hose, made a note to order other waterpump hose before it happens again.

Yesterday Wife called and said there was another tiny puddle in the garage. Checked levels, fine (puddle is tiny). Parked back in there, no puddle this morning. WTF?

And the antifreeze smell still comes up once in a while through the vents and out the exhaust. You go out in the garage after I come home and it smells like antifreeze out there.

Did the headgasket failure just permeate something deep inside the car with the smell? Or is there something still seriously wrong? But I'm not losing coolant.......... except for random small leaks. And how many more hoses do I need to replace before no more will sudden fail in a big way? I got to be getting close, right? Weird these hoses are failing though in the way they do - pinhole right in the middle, and the rubber isn't very stiff (Tom showed me some stiff brittle hoses that he replaced).

It's all very weird!

Any thoughts or ideas. I appreciate anyone that read this far, I hope the detail is appreciated.

[SoCal LS-L]

Coolant smell out of the exhaust, not good. Can you tell where the coolant may be pouring from when you see the giant puddles?

I would 100% recommend using a Block Tester kit to check for another HG issue, if you have an Autozone near you they rent quality ones for free, you just buy the fluid. I know some here think they dont work but I have seen it work countless times, and it worked on nsm484's SVX

Originally Posted by nsm484

Any idea how much this process would cost?

Also, just to update... I did buy a Block Tester. I Syphoned my fluid out of the rad. just enough to make sure it didn't get sucked into the tester.
I did the test 3 times, going nice and easy on the ball as to not suck in air too fast, And each time... It changed to yellow fairly quickly.

I would do this to first rule out HG problems....... compression pressures in your cooling system can cause weird sporadic leaks and other strange symptoms, so ruling that out will help finding other possible problems.

[WestCoastSVX]

Originally Posted by SoCal LS-L

Can you even tell where the coolant may be pouring from when you see the giant puddles?

Well the 2 small puddles in the garage that make no sense were both like 2 or 3 DROPS, not "giant puddles". Couldn't figure where those came from.

The giant, gallon-sized puddle was when I found the drip coming from the water pump in (or out?) rubber hose that had a pin hole.

Likewise when it sprayed all over at the shop it was another small pin hole in a hose under the manifold.

Guess I should try the block tester, it better not be a HG after only 7 months and 4,000 miles though.

Also the twice since then through all this mystery the Subaru shop has ran pressure tests on the system - is that the same thing the block tester does? Sorry for my ignorance.

[SoCal LS-L]

Originally Posted by MacGyver

Well the 2 small puddles in the garage that make no sense were both like 2 or 3 DROPS, not "giant puddles". Couldn't figure where those came from.

The giant, gallon-sized puddle was when I found the drip coming from the water pump in (or out?) rubber hose that had a pin hole.

Likewise when it sprayed all over at the shop it was another small pin hole in a hose under the manifold.

Guess I should try the block tester, it better not be a HG after only 7 months and 4,000 miles though.

Also the twice since then through all this mystery the Subaru shop has ran pressure tests on the system - is that the same thing the block tester does? Sorry for my ignorance.

No a pressure test forces pressure into the system to check for leaks, the pressure reading will drop confirming a leak somewhere, and it will also force coolant out of the leak, making finding it easier.

Hopefully its NOT a HG, I know you mentioned YT did it so its pretty unlikely that his repair failed... but its best to be sure before chasing leak after leak if they are caused by a HG problem.

The block tester works differently and more effectively than a pressure tester, since HG can be intermittent (some leak more while cold, others while hot).
What you do is you fill a clear plastic tube with special blue fluid, the tube has rubber stoppers at either end, one is tapered into a cone shape to fit your radiators fill port. You make sure your coolant in the radiator is low enough so it doesnt get pushed or sucked into the blue fluid. You start and run the car.... if the HG is bad enough it will just bubble air right through the liquid, other times you suck air through the fluid with the little squeeze pump provided with the kit. If the fluid turns green or yellow in the time specified, the you have exhaust gasses in your cooling system, confirmation of a HG leak. The procedure should be started when your car is cold, and again when its fully hot.

This kit helped me diagnose no less than 20 HG leaks when I managed an auto shop in north tahoe, and a few times when I was going to buy a used car from someone.
It will not however diagnose a HG that leaks out of the block, since the coolant/compression chambers would then not be connected by the leak. But from your description of coolant smell out of the exhaust, it would seem it would be a detectable leak into the cooling system, and would overpressurize it, causing new leaks (if it is a HG).

[Crazy_pilot]

Do you have a block heater in your car?

[nsm484]

Originally Posted by SoCal LS-L

No a pressure test forces pressure into the system to check for leaks, the pressure reading will drop confirming a leak somewhere, and it will also force coolant out of the leak, making finding it easier.

Hopefully its NOT a HG, I know you mentioned YT did it so its pretty unlikely that his repair failed... but its best to be sure before chasing leak after leak if they are caused by a HG problem.

The block tester works differently and more effectively than a pressure tester, since HG can be intermittent (some leak more while cold, others while hot).
What you do is you fill a clear plastic tube with special blue fluid, the tube has rubber stoppers at either end, one is tapered into a cone shape to fit your radiators fill port. You make sure your coolant in the radiator is low enough so it doesnt get pushed or sucked into the blue fluid. You start and run the car.... if the HG is bad enough it will just bubble air right through the liquid, other times you suck air through the fluid with the little squeeze pump provided with the kit. If the fluid turns green or yellow in the time specified, the you have exhaust gasses in your cooling system, confirmation of a HG leak. The procedure should be started when your car is cold, and again when its fully hot.

This kit helped me diagnose no less than 20 HG leaks when I managed an auto shop in north tahoe, and a few times when I was going to buy a used car from someone.
It will not however diagnose a HG that leaks out of the block, since the coolant/compression chambers would then not be connected by the leak. But from your description of coolant smell out of the exhaust, it would seem it would be a detectable leak into the cooling system, and would overpressurize it, causing new leaks (if it is a HG).

Also, for that matter, I can always make a "How-To" use the block tester as well. Its very easy to use, and does work well to detect the exhaust gasses in the cooling system