Monday morning, I saw my "low coolant" light come on.
It went away, and the coolant level seemed fine to me.
I chalked it up to the 30* weather (VS the 85* it had just come from)

I got home from work today and parked in the driveway.
On my way back from the mailbox, I noticed something on the driveway under the car.
Upon closer inspection, I realized it was coolant (and lots of it)



I havn't jacked it up yet, but I am hoping it's just the water pump.
I have a new electric one sitting in a box that I was planning on installed anyway.

The hoses look ok, I don't see any coolant up high.
The only evidence I can see (so far) is on the swaybar.

 

Start it up and watch the hoses. As the engine heats you should see the source of the leak. The water pump can leak at the shaft seal but that is about it, so look also in that area.

 

I'll have to check in the morning, it's already dark here.

There is definitely a steady stream coming down the face of the
engine and dripping on the swaybar. I didn't find any wet hoses, I'll
get a bettr look tomorrow when I put it up on the jack stands.

All I could do was reach under with my digi cam and take pictures blindly.

Closeup of coolant dripping on pully and shaft(?)
Under car, stream of coolant

 

It's leaking out of the weep hole. Pull it off, install electric pump and seal everything up tight and dont worry about water pump failure taking out the opti again.

-Shannon

 

Not much of a weeping hole is it? More of an all out storm drain.

 

Lol, it's about the size of a pen so it can let out a stream of water about the size of what your seeing.

-Shannon

 

So, the weephole is for venting and the seals inside are probably shot which is causing the leak right? Based on the "weephole" search I just did, it's not that uncommon. Better now than 1200 miles down the highway where I don't have all of my tools or the opportunity to notice these things.

Thanks for the tips, i was getting worried for a while there.

 

UPDATE:

The water pump has been removed, gutted, plugged and reinstalled with the elecric pump. It runs AWESOME! I used the cooling fan circuit in the fuse box to trigger a relay which runs the electric pump. I had to make a small "modification" to my fan shrowd to make it all fit. (I love my dremel tool)

Engine stays nice and cool and no more dripping.

The troublesom guts have been severely punished.

Thank you for the advice.