coolant leak from behind pass. side valvecover, help!

On or around Fri, 10 Jun 2005 18:19:10 -0700, "TT" enlightened us thusly:

there are always head gaskets... not the most cheerful news. If there are no water pipes etc. in the relevant location, though...

on the bright side, V8s are nice easy engines to work on and the heads don't weigh half a ton[1] like the bugger on the 2.5 petrol that I lifted. If you do lift a head, don't forget to check that it and the block are flat before refitting a new gasket, or you end up doing the job again.

Sounds very much like it's the P gasket behind the water pump - a known coolant leak blackspot ;-) Have a look, standing at the passenger side, at the front of the engine - you should be able to see traces where the coolant has leaked out from the aluminium to engine block joint behind the water pump.

You need to drain down coolant, remove aux belt, alternator and the complete mounting with the water pump on it to replace the gasket. Make sure you get one of the metal gaskets to replace it. Takes about an hour if you know what you're doing or two if you don't

If you must drive carry at least a gallon of water with you and be prepared to turn the heater up to bring the temp down - running at excessive temp's is not good for the cylinder head - too much and you're probably looking at warping the head and developing a blown head gasket BTDT

Did my P gasket last weekend ;-)

Chris Take the rubbish out to email me!

On or around Sat, 11 Jun 2005 08:26:07 GMT, Chris Ward enlightened us thusly:

Interesting that you assumed TDi and I assumed V8...

Hehe - at least he has both side's of the coin now then!

Chris Take the rubbish out to email me!