Club 80-90 Forums

I'm new to this water cooled malarky.

If I leave the van in the garage (yes, it lives indoors) for a few days I find a small puddle of my precious coolant on the garage floor, roughly central under the engine itself. By small I mean an egg cup's worth.

Levels in the header and expansion tank look the same (OK so they must be going down a bit) and I cannot find any drips or dribbles on pipe unions or clips. It does not seem to leak when running or when warm or stopped after a run.

Any suggestions as to where to look?

Hi Michael, couple of places to check:

1) Use your small finger to feel the underneath of the rubber water hose that connects to the carb. Sometime it can leak here after a run (it won't leak there when running). Also have a look at the top of the engine to see if the coolant has collected there and is running down.

2) Also, if you have push rod tube covers take these off and have a look as sometimes the coolant can run to here and collect in the cover before dropping to the ground.

there are multiple pipe joints this could be coming from and running round and dripping off,
a trick that often is used is to puff some talc powder on the engine , when liquid runs through it it leaves trackmarks and gives you a clue ....
could be coreplugs with pin holes , or water jacket seals , both of which youll need the tin wear off to see

Another tell tale method used is to get some blue paper roll and wrap it around the various hose unions, leave it a day and then look for signs of dampness.