Hey Guys,

My GTO recently passed 52,000 miles and all seemed to be fine. Recently, I noticed that there was some liquid under the car. It looked like water to me, so I figured it was just runoff from the recent rain we had which made its way to the garage floor. But after getting home from class last night, I took a closer look as the liquid was still there. Upon touching it, it still remained pretty clear. It felt slightly slick, but not as slick as oil. I didn' think coolant at first since I would expect that to be red since I use Dexcool. I put the car on ramps to get a closer look. There is liquid spattered all over. I am assuming this is likely blowoff from high speeds. The liquid is like greenish brown in nature. I checked all of the fluids and it is definitely coolant. I will post some pictures, but it was all over the underside of my skid plate, some on the fan enclosure, and just all over. It is not milky in color. I am worried a head gasket may be blown since I didn't see any hoses leaking. My dad (who is more mechanical than me) is going to come over and look at it. I am going to clean up what I can and then bring it up to temperature to see if there are any leaks under high pressure. I don't know much about this stuff. I take care of the car and rarely go full throttle. So what do you guys think? The coolant in the radiator is the same green/brown color as what's spattered all about. Should I be worried? Could it be my water pump? Thanks guys.

 

Looking at where the coolant is on the car I'd guess that something got your radiator.

 

time for a cooling system pressure test. With the engine cold - clean everything really well and rent/borrow a tester and prime the system to the cap specs psi. Probably 16. then start looking.

And sometimes you can only find a leak when its warm. so if the above test doesn't show anything, remove the tester and start it up and let it run untill the fans come on.

and keep looking.

 

Hey guys,

Well, I figured I would give this thread an update since the problem is now fixed. It turns out that the leaking fluid was coming from the back of the water pump. The water pump recently started to be noisy at idle (until warmed up) but of course I wasn't aware it was the water pump at that point. It looks like one of the gaskets gave way. It was damn hard to spot at first. We had to refill the coolant and drive around to get the temps up enough since we inspected the radiator and hoses thoroughly. Then my dad spotted it. The water pump had a drip. It wasn't pouring out or anything like that, but that is the only leak we saw. I bought an MGB replacement pump from Advance Auto. It doesn't have the pressed in back plate like the stock pump which I read is a good thing from searching the forums. We almost had it done last night until we over-torqued a bolt. By then, we had no more light. I got a new bolt today and we finished he installation. I took advantage of the pump failure and replaced the accessory belt, serpentine belt, full coolant flush, and put in a new thermostat. We had to burp it a bunch of times today. There was a leak from the overfill tank but we think that was just from the initial bursts of steam. After running and the topping off the coolant, it seems to have stopped. While this job isn't overly hard, it is nice to have two people. I am glad my old man was around to help me. Thank you for all of your input. You guys are a great help as always!

 

Glad to hear its fixed!

 

Well, it turns out the leak was not fixed afterall. I fixed the water pump and the vast majority of the leak was fixed. However, there were still a few drops under the car which turns out to be a significant amount when I had to fill the radiator. It took me some time to track down the remaining leak. It was coming from under the radiator cap around the filler neck. I was praying that the plastic was not cracked and I would just need a new cap. I bought a new Stant cap from Advance Auto and put it on. I drove around today and got the system up to temperature and looked around. The leak is fixed. The original radiator cap developed a slight defect in the rubber gasket over time. I hope this new cap holds up .