Hi there, I've got myself a rather fantastic coolant leak. It literally drips out as soon as I fill the expansion tank.

The leak is coming from somewhere under the air inlet manifold.

It's dripping down onto/around the coupling for the thermostat and coolant delivery pipe (?) that runs along the engine block under the inlet manifold. Video in link: I'm getting a cheap endoscope to try see more as I just can't face pulling the manifold off. But is this gonna be a cracked cylinder head/gasket that's letting this by? Or possibly something not so terminal....

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a-lOkWXpWLTDKABCr6u-ABQBBOrWOhvG/view?usp=drivesdk

Edited 19 hours ago19 hr by Entertwainer

Probably just his metal pipe that runs across the back of the engine, or one of the connections where rubber hoses join onto it?

Can't view your video unfortunately.

Seems like wishful thinking that you'll get far without removing intake manifold. That's probably not too difficult, especially if you can get some light behind there and have a 'mirror on a stick'.

hopefully its something as simple as that - but not being able to see without taking off loads of stuff and breaking that in the process, is a little frustrating. got my endoscope coming today, so hopefully i can see what is actually leaking.....its not showing signs of any headgasket issues - no loss of power, no fault codes and no white smoke - coolant reservoir isn't contaminated either. water pump is fine as i inspected that and that side of the engine is bone dry.

coolant also can get mixed with oil, not entering combustion chamber. not visible oil in coolant, but coolant in oil.

isn't that what presents itself as white smoke out the back end?

6 minutes ago, imart143 said:

coolant also can get mixed with oil, not entering combustion chamber. not visible oil in coolant, but coolant in oil.

i see what you said now actually - i guess maybe checking the oil that comes out the sump could be a point to check? if the endoscope doesn't give me the answer