Hi all,

I have read a lot of the previous threads about coolant leaks but didn't find anything that described mine.

It seems my coolant leak is intermittent, and is most obvious when the car is cold. In central Florida the last two nights were in the upper 20's for the overnight lows. So yesterday I went into the garage and pulled the car out, I immediately saw a puddle under where my car had been sitting, but the area was toward the back of the motor. So I left the car running in my drive and looked underneath it, and saw a good amount of coolant running off of the oil filter and created a nice size puddle. After the car warmed up the leak stopped, I checked the coolant level and it seemed ok and my idiot light didn't come on. But I do have some steam in my exhaust and the smell of burning coolant. I also have some oil in the coolant, the problem here is I don't know if it was there from the previous owner or if it is fresh, what I can say is my oil level isn't dropping as I have been keeping an eye on it.

So, would an intake manifold gasket cause this or am I looking at something potentially bigger?

Other information, I did do a coolant flush but the radiator and overflow tub have brown crud in them.

Oh yea, car has 84k miles on it....not sure if that matters

Thanks in advance for advice...

 

Maybe maybe... If you have the optional oil cooler, KC4 in the RPO list, then you have 2 short coolant rubber hoses in the oil filter area. If you are lucky it might just be a leak from one of them.

I replaced mine some years ago because they looked really bad.

 

Check all hose clamps and tighten.