Lower intake leak

96 Supercharged Riviera

Hey everyone, i have been chasing a really small (really small)water leak.

Occasionally I can smell coolant when I am driving, checked heater core. Seemed OK.

I can drive, and then look under the car after driving 30 miles or so, and nothing, no drips, nothing.

I let it sit for 8 hrs at work, or overnight and there is a little puddle(10 drips,?) Under the front right corner, right under the radiator.  Thought it was the Rad, but nope.

Get under the car and there is green anti freeze staining on the backside of the AC compressor, and some water on the frame rail.

Water pump, nope, coolant hose. Nope.

Just happen to look under the supercharger snout and there is a clean spot right under the coolant fitting.

Coolant fitting is dry it seems, must be lower gasket.

It must be a really small seep, I stared at it for 5 or 10 minutes while the car warmed up and didn't see it leak.

Is there a kit with all the gaskets or just buy everything separate?

250,000 miles so it's not surprising, probably do fuel injectors and thermostat too, anything else I should replace while I am there?

Rp23g7 wrote:

96 Supercharged Riviera

Hey everyone, i have been chasing a really small (really small)water leak.

Occasionally I can smell coolant when I am driving, checked heater core. Seemed OK.

I can drive, and then look under the car after driving 30 miles or so, and nothing, no drips, nothing.

I let it sit for 8 hrs at work, or overnight and there is a little puddle(10 drips,?) Under the front right corner, right under the radiator.  Thought it was the Rad, but nope.

Get under the car and there is green anti freeze staining on the backside of the AC compressor, and some water on the frame rail.

Water pump, nope, coolant hose. Nope.

Just happen to look under the supercharger snout and there is a clean spot right under the coolant fitting.

Coolant fitting is dry it seems, must be lower gasket.

It must be a really small seep, I stared at it for 5 or 10 minutes while the car warmed up and didn't see it leak.

Is there a kit with all the gaskets or just buy everything separate?

250,000 miles so it's not surprising, probably do fuel injectors and thermostat too, anything else I should replace while I am there?

You should find the leak first.

On this site you'll find (somewhere) the story of a leak I had on my Riv that took me **years** to find. The drivers' side radiator tank had developed a crack that only leaked under high pressure. I had been looking off-and-on for a leak for quite some time. The coolant would stay good for months then all of a sudden it would get low. Well, I was working on something else, took the car for a drive, pulled into the driveway and got out/opened hood with engine running.

And there it was.

A thin (like fishing line) stream of coolant pissing out of the drivers side radiator tank and straight onto the ground. Without that luck I'd have never found it.

So, FWIW, my suggestion: keep looking, you'll find it. Especially check the plastics and the connections to the soft hoses. Also some of these engines had a bit of 'porosity' in the block castings, and a couple-three Stop Leak tabs were required (per the service manual) each time you changed coolant.

My guess is you've got a hairline crack in the passenger side plastic radiator tank, or something's failed in the place where that tank mounts onto the radiator core.