pHEnomIC

I have been smelling antifreeze every time i idle for over a minute and today, i parked, turned the car off, and a ton of antifreeze started dumpin from the bottom. Its directly under the reservoir tube and i dont see any leaks. What should I try? I also see some black liquid buildup on a screw on the bottom of the car. I heard this means the water pump may be failing. What do you guys recommend I do? I don't want to overheat and I want to get rid of the smell.

n2ceptor

how old is our radiator cap???? Can you see where the fliud is coming exactly from.. The water pump has a weep hole...

americanmusscle

Take out your battery, unscrew the bolts that hold the reservoir, and check to see if the reservoir is cracked. Also look to see if there is a river or stream that usually runs down a hose that you can trace back to the origin. Go under the car and check all the obvious places like hoses, weep hole under water pump, radiator, and other places that you can see.

pHEnomIC

I checked all the hoses and it does appear that it leaked through the cap because there was some dribble that was still wet looking like it came from there. The cap was on tight so i guess I'll try another one.

BTW, i've been filling my radiator everytime the level was down, is it ok to not be complletely full in the radiator? Should i only add to the reservoir from now on?

TobyZ28

Adding to the radiator is fine, just dont do it if the cars hot or your going to have some bad burns

zx1216

You prolly have a bad cap, i forgot to close mine when i put some coolent in it and it was overflowing the overflow tank because the system wasn't pressurized.