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whiteblock coolant use

mschultz373

mschultz373

Member
Joined
Mar 11, 2020
Location
dirty coast
my 96 960 seems to 'use' coolant every 1500-2k miles. Will drain from max seam to the bottom, with the dash light kicking on. No leaks in the engine bay that I can find. is this common on these and other whiteblock engines?
 
No, it's not. Are you getting signs of a bad head gasket (milkshake, etc...) ? They do have some pipes on the back of the engine that can rust, I know my 04 V70R eventually had enough exposure to road salt that it developed pin holes in the water line running behind the block. Not a fun one to replace either.
 
Any excess pressure building up in the coolant tank? I'd probably do a combustion gas test on that. The kits are affordable a most parts stores, or a shop would probably do it for a few bucks.
 
If it still has original headgasket, one of the usual spots is headgasket slowly leaking out from the right rear corner. Most commonly it has an oil leak first and later coolant. Other ones are thermostat seal, bottom corners of the radiator and heater core(wet floors and/or foggy windows when air is humid).
 
My 98 960 engine has a fairly large coolant leak coming from the heater elbow on the back of the head. I couldn't find the leak when it started draining the reservoir every 1-2kish miles like yours but it's very obvious now that the leak has gotten worse
 
Heater hoses and heater hose fittings. Heck often the overflow tank just straight up leaks too.

Check everything rubber or plastic, then move on to the harder stuff.
 
Pressure test it?

Heater core, hoses, all the easy stuff.

Then, like Lankku said, I've seen a bunch of head gaskets leak at the right rear.

I'm going to assume it's probably not a porous block. I haven't seen one of those in 15 years. But you're losing too much, too quickly... Was strange to see a block "sweat" coolant though...
 
I had that problem on my 960 and then the trans died... The radiator / auto trans cooler was leaking coolant into the transmission. Check your trans fluid for signs of water / antifreeze.
 
GTJordan said:
I'm going to assume it's probably not a porous block. I haven't seen one of those in 15 years. But you're losing too much, too quickly... Was strange to see a block "sweat" coolant though...
Click to expand...
Now that you said it it's really been a couple of years since I've last seen a cracked block. The bad ones might be scrapped by now.
 
thanks for the info everyone.

does anyone know the pressure spec when testing the system? I want to pressurize and look for leaks. I couldn't find anything online so was thinking I could just pressure to the spec on the cap - 75kpa, or about 11PSI? black cap.
 
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i also have a grey 150kpa cap that I haven't used?

I tried pressure testing it @ 16psi and found a small leak from a clamp that I replaced. then tried pressure testing it to 21psi and it blew the tester off. testing again at 11psi - thus far, holding pressure with minimal loss after 15min. it's a harbor freight tester so.
 
mschultz373 said:
i also have a grey 150kpa cap that I haven't used?

I tried pressure testing it @ 16psi and found a small leak from a clamp that I replaced. then tried pressure testing it to 21psi and it blew the tester off. testing again at 11psi - thus far, holding pressure with minimal loss after 15min. it's a harbor freight tester so.
Click to expand...

I never really trust what the gauge reads over time honestly. Just from experience, unless it is a big leak, you just lose it through the cap/tool.

I'd pressurize it to 15ish, then I'd start crawling around and start looking for anything. If you can't find anything. Get the car hot, and retest. It might be something that only leaks when hot.

Have you found any white traces anywhere? Slower leaks tend to leave a white residue

Jordan
 
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