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Last night at the grocery store while walking back to my 83 900T I noticed coolant leaking from my car in a pretty steady stream. It was dripping off the 'skid plates' just underneath the battery. It had dripped enough in the 10 minutes I was in the store to run in a little stream all the way to a storm drain a good 15+ feet away. It looked a little too clear to be antifreeze, so I cautiously tasted it to see if, by chance, it could be battery electrolyte leaking (that turbo exhaust does come a bit too close to the battery for my comfort).
No acid taste--good. But it tasted a bit strange, though it was definitely not a petroleum product. What else could it be besides coolant? No visible leaks under the bonnet, even when running. I figured I was good to make the 5 minute drive home and assess it more there.
At home it did the same thing, drip, drip, drip, trickle, trickle. Hmmmm.... I left her for the night, making sure to give her the customary kiss on the roof and said I'd be back in the morning to make it all better.
So today I get all geared up for a major troubleshooting event. I read up on the cooling system and checked the board for quirks in that area. I read about frost plugs, pin hole leaks, bad hoses, and coolant leaks from Turbos, even though I'm pretty sure my 83 doesn't use coolant to cool the turbo...
Another inspection while cold turned up nothing. The oil looked fine - no coolant in there, thankfully. So I fire her up and wait. During the wait for the engine to heat up and build up a little pressure I looked over a few other things. How about that vacuum line that must be disconnected somewhere between my APC gauge and the manifold? Looks good from the manifold back to the firewall...still a mystery. Yep, my same old oil leak, likely from the turbo oil cooler lines is dripping away...one drip every 8 seconds now. Yikes!
The fans finally turn on but no drip/leak has shown up. Good!?!? As I'm rattling around I notice the windshild washer reservoir is loose, quite loose. Loose enough I can pull it up a bit, to the point I can look down and see a break in the hose where it fits over the pump fitting.
Turns out the pump rotated in the res tank, allowing the nipple and hose to contact the fender wall and 'tear' the hose, allowing all my washer fluid to leak out. That's why my 'coolant' looked a bit too clear and tasted funny. (I'm partially color blind and have the dickens of a time picking out faint or dull colors.) A quick test drive to warm her all the way up and still no leak.
Keeping my fingers crossed that the next event will be just as quirky and inexpensive to fix....
So how about that APC gauge? Any ideas?
posted by 65.101.154...
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