Coolant leak

[IFM]

I am fairly new to Elan ownership. I have owned a Sprint DHC for about a year and a half. Most of that has been trouble-free....

However last weekend when I took her to the filling station I noticed a little pool of coolant under the front of the car. For some reason I didn't think it was from me and so wasn't too worried about it. I then drove the car for about twenty miles with no problems.

Yesterday I took the car out again. Drove about one mile and stopped at the shops. When I came out there was a little pool of coolant again. This time it was definitely from me.... It wasn't there before. I spent the rest of the day trying to work out where it was came from but with no success.

It seems as though it only leaks a little before it heats up. There's plenty of coolant still in the radiator and there's no evidence of overheating. The cabin heater is still working fine.

Any idea where this could be coming from? Should I be worried about this?

Thanks

Ian

[Emma-Knight]

maybe Your radiator cap "suction-mode" doesn't work any more:
when hot, the radiator pressure cap lets a small amount of coolant into the recuperation bottle - and sucks back, when engine is cold. If it is stuck, the suction phase won't work and the bottle gets filled more and more and starts leaking(it's not a pressurized expansion system as on modern cars). There are different caps: outlet only and outlet/backsuction type. Maybe You got the wrong cap (and didn't notice the leak). Or its just stuck as mentioned before. It might be possible to free the suction funktion.
So first have a look where the water comes from and if the bottle is full to top.

Anna

PS: when You stop the engine, the remaining heat rises as the radiator is no longer in an airstream so expansion of coolant

[Dave-M]

Might be worth looking at the water Pump. See if it's wet on the underside just behind the pulley. I hope it's not the pump for your sake. If it is I would see to it immediatly as they can fail very quickly and dump the coolant with serious consequenses.
Really hope it's not but do check it
Regards
Dave

[RotoFlexible]

You might also check the freeze plugs in the block and head, both on the exhaust side. When I tore down my engine last fall, there were coolant traces from one of block plugs and one of the head plugs. The latter are located between the exhaust ports. These tend to leak more to the side of the engine, not the front, so the water pump is a good bet as well.

[IFM]

Thanks guys.

I'll definitely check the water pump at the weekend - won't get a chance before. Would it be an engine out job?

I'm not really sure where the fluid was coming from other than the engine area in general. I should have been more observant but instead I thought I'd get it home and sort it out there... But when I got home I couldn't recreate the leak! Hence my belief that it only happens when it's cool.

[triumphelan]

Definately engine out ,it`s also a good time to do all other jobs whilst it`s out ie timing chain,oil leaks various,various head work etc etc

[1964 S1]

Wait a minute, the guy's got a minor coolant leak and ... WHO? knows where it's coming from ? Engine out and rebuild?

[schroeder]

Ian

I once had something similar on my +2. There is a small hole behind/below the water pump pulley that drains coolant that gets past the water pump seal. Coolant would drip from this hole when cold at idle but after the engine warmed up the drip would stop. It did not leak with the engine off and since it is really hard to observe I never could determine if it stopped at higher revs.

The timing cover never got wet but a small witness pool could be seen below the front of the engine. To put this in perspective, I guess there was a drip every second at idle so the pool was pretty small.

The water pump was relatively new <12K miles but the car had been standing for some time. Eventually the leak stopped on its own.

Don't know if this is the same issue as yours but good luck.

Stu

[tdafforn]

Slightly different subject...
Can you fit a modern pressurised system to the twink?
I am fitting a new aluminium radiator (from an Audi) and it doesn't have an integral filler. I was going to get a modern remote reservoir. Would there be an advantage to uprgading to a pressurised system?
Tim

[CBUEB1771]

Slightly different subject...
Can you fit a modern pressurised system to the twink?
I am fitting a new aluminium radiator (from an Audi) and it doesn't have an integral filler. I was going to get a modern remote reservoir. Would there be an advantage to uprgading to a pressurised system?
Tim

The standard Twink cooling system is pressurized. Are you thinking about going higher, to say the 1.1 bar (approximately 15 psi cap) that is in my modern daily driver? I would stay at about 7 psi. To go higher you risk blowing core plugs out of the cylinder block and causing other failures. I speak from first hand experience. The best thing to do is make sure that air leakage paths around the radiator are blocked well. I have had no cooling problems with my +2S after closing off the air leakage routes.