Fluid on driveway

Ran 2003 Expy for 10 minutes this morning to warm up and melt ice, found this fluid on driveway. I'm guessing its radiator fluid ... coming from rear heat unit since it's about 1 foot in front of and 1 foot inside passenger rear tire. Does coolant run to there? Dunno though, have not looked under yet. Maybe a dog was under there pee'ing? Does turning rear heat off stop coolant running to back there or is that just a fan control thing? I'll have to keep an eye on it, look under there, and make sure coolant level don't crater on me. I really dont need rear heat or a/c so if thats it I'll be looking to just block it off upstream of leak and fughetabout it. I had the thumping and disconnected both of those years ago. Thinkin ahead but not getting too far ahead of myself. Glad I have the 2014 to drive if this BEAST needs to go on injured reserve. Any suggestions?

I don't know about '03 for certain, but on my '11 EL there is an aux heater core located in the right rear of the vehicle.

I believe the coolant flows through both heater cores whether or not the heat's on. Watch your coolant level, maybe mark the bottle. See if rear heat smells when it's on and check it all out when the snow clears...

If it gets bad just disconnect and plug or loop around the hoses if you can. This stuff waits until the weather's bad to break.

Update: I put a brown paper grocery bag (now legal in NYS) under there and ran it for 10 minutes. Only "leak" is out rear center bottom of muffler (might be CAT I dunno) which is close to location I identified before but not really there. Besides, thats water & probably normal (I should probably take this BEAST for longer drives once a week to purge this stuff). So I also found rear wiper spray nozzle had been discombobulated (likely whacking ice) and was more of a stream than spray. So wiper fluid pours down the window over bumper and onto ground. Same appearance as coolant. Maybe I should taste it to see which it is? I guess the suspect driveway UhOh could be wiper fluid. I might put some food coloring in there to diagnose. It's either coolant or wiper fluid. Checked coolant, a bit low but have not looked at that in years. At least now I have marked it's level.

When I was down there I found the "muffler" (cat?) heat shield is skeewacky and out of control. I'll have to wrangle that somehow.

Its all starting to make sense. My wiper spring pivot joint (holds it against glass) was rusted and froze-up so I had PB'd it a few days ago and I think I tested wiper/spray function after that ... so thats gotta be it. Will monitor things to make sure. Need to add coolant. Added red food coloring to wiper fluid.

That's you good luck for the week.

Those heat shields sometime will go back on with a hose clamp around the pipe or just rip them off. See 'em on the road all the time.

I'm sure you recycled that paper bag in an environmentally sensitive manner? Perhaps as a hat?

Trainmaster said:

That's you good luck for the week.

Those heat shields sometime will go back on with a hose clamp around the pipe or just rip them off. See 'em on the road all the time.

I'm sure you recycled that paper bag in an environmentally sensitive manner? Perhaps as a hat?

Click to expand...

Yes it's in the recycle bin
Hat is good idea ... can I use one of your tinfoil hats as a model?
I know you have several, one for all 9 days of your week



I'm gonna rip that heat shield off and recycle it properly, maybe sell it as scrap?
do you want it to make another tinfoil hat?
if you dont want it i might use it to repair a wheel well or quarter panel .... it won't rust

I wonder if that errant heat shield boogered up a hose causing my P0446 SES ?
this whole situation may end being a positive thang

The tinfoil's easier to work with and can be dismantled when the thought police come.

Happy for you that you're not thinking about replacing a heater core in Upstate February!

OK. Victory declared too early. Ran it again this morning and now 2 spots with that yellow green color. The same one as before (about 1 foot in front of and 1 foot in from passenger rear tire front) & another one a couple feet farther toward front of vehicle and another 1/2 foot in. I had dyed the wiper fluid RED so thats not the source. I think the only fluid in play is coolant and is same color. Coolant level seems about the same although it is below the cold fill mark. Further diagnosis required. AS far as I know the only thing in play here is the rear heating unit / route to from that. Got it running again on a fresh patch of white snow so maybe I can zoom in on something? Just love laying on the ground and crawling under the BEAST on ice but ya gotta do what ya gotta do and I have a LOT of free time. This thing is definitely a hobby and entertaining to my sick mind.

OK. Ran it for 12 minutes and only leak I see is right about in the middle of the vehicle ... about 10 inches behind a cross member at rear of engine. Hmmm ... coming from engine .... or engine area ... isnt that where the firewall is? hmmm?

Stick, you may know this already but check the heater hose tee on the top of the engine near the plugs. They leak antifreeze on the motor which runs down if it gets too bad. And check the hose connections where the heater hoses go into the firewall for the heater core.

If you really want to get in the snow you can follow the hoses and aluminum piping down the passenger side of the engine/firewall for the rear heater core. I think there are some hose/tubing connections on that.

Since it's so damn cold an you won'f feel the wetness, use a tissue or toilet paper to wipe the connections to find a green leak.

Lastly there are the heater cores but you really don't want to think of them now.

Oh, one more thing you don't want to find out: Look where the head meets the block down by the passenger side starter. The head gaskets tend to leak antifreeze or oil there sometimes.

Good luck with that and spring is coming.

If you don't want to buy a pressure tester kit, see if any of your local autoparts stores have one to loan out. Park the Expy somewhere you can get under it. Use the coolant pressure test kit to pump the system up to 10-15 psi and look under the vehicle for the leak. It will be pretty obvious where it's coming from because it'll probably be spraying out.



https://www.amazon.com/Cooling-Syst...9Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=