Cooling Leak suggestions

[Tedybear]

Hello,

Been a while sense my last set of posts. Wife and I picked up a VW Beetle 2001 and that has been taking up just about all my time doing maintenance and getting it road worthy.

Anywho...

My 2.9 in our BII, 1989. It has had sense the first day a cooling system leak. It's the rubber hose for the radiator that goes to the water outlet/thermostat housing.

I've replaced the hose 2 times, along with the water outlet. Same results. It seems to "Weep" coolant out from between the hose and the outlet itself. The clamp has been setup "Snug" all the way to "S&it that's flippen tight" over the last few years. Each time? I smell the coolant---peek at it--and sure enough? It's damp and drippy from that connection. The water outlet seem not to be made of a smooth material, but a very rough metal construction.

I'll be changing out the thermostat at the same time I change out the hose and the water outlet yet again...

Anyone have any decent ideas on how to seal that flippen thing once and for all? I was considering coating the 'neck' with a thick RTV black layer and shoving the hose onto it---and then tighten the batsnot out of if.

S-

 

[wildbill23c]

Possibly the outlet could be cracked? If you have replaced the hose tightened it down right, it shouldn't be leaking, unless the leak is coming from the radiator itself and traveling down the hose.

 

[RonD]

^^ +1

I had a leak once that was a fine stream................from another connection, so I was looking in the wrong place for the leak.

Best way to look for a leak(outside of using the pressure tester) is to warm up the engine, even put a piece of card board in front of the rad to get temp up to at least 1/2 on the gauge.

Now shut it off and start looking, move hoses around.
There should be at least 10psi inside the cooling system at this time, rad cap pressure if overflow tank is above COLD mark.

 

[Tedybear]

Sadly the forum went "Boom" when I was responding to stuff.

I did find one drippy leak at the heater hose at the firewall this morning. That will be fixed once it gets a bit warmer (it was -6 below zero when I left for work today)

The fun part with this leak. It's not even if the system is under pressure. It just 'weeps' out like a slow ooze. I figured if people saw it? It would save some confusion. (And sorry...it's not spraying...it's just oozing. I wish it was a spray, that would be easier to figure out.)

You can see where the leak has caused some green crust and other drain marks. I've never had such a pain in the rear end. I figured it out. 2 hoses and 3 cooling outlets changed trying to fix this. Each housing looks not like a polished part---but potmarked with pits and cracks and such....Like the surface of the moon <G>


Thanks!!

S-