radiator coolant 97 xlt followup

Do you smell a sweet smell from the warm engine? Is there any wetness on the front passenger floor. Pull your oil dipstick and see what the oil looks like, if it looks whiteish, thats a problem. Also look just inside the radiator filler neck, what do you see? When you fill the radiator fill it at the tank itself not just the reservoir. Fill with a 50/50 mix, leave the cap off and run the engine until you have heat once you have heat put the cap on and check it again in a day or so. if the radiator is low then for sure you have aleak somewhere. Now you have to figure out where. Check all your hoses and fittings to the rad. itself. First though after filling the rad. rinse off the engine uderneath and all. then after running the engine for a day or so, get under and look for the telltale green drops. I use an LED light, it seems to bring out the greem antifreeze.

searcher1 \

"AcidBurn" wrotenews:nKJ0e.14354$191.6104@trnddc02:

An Old trick is to get a big sheet of white butcher's paper and put it underneath and you can see exactly where and what the leak is.

Alright well took it to the shop and they say I need a thermastat replacement and some thermastat mount. With the oil change, parts, and labor its gonna hit $300.

Hmmm. Not sure what "some thermastat mount" would be, but if all they need to do is a basic thermostat replacement, oil change, parts, etc. that sounds kind of high to me. Maybe with labor it ends up costing that much (not something I've ever paid to have done myself), but if I were doing it in my driveway (e.g. doing it myself) for my '96 V6 I would guess it should cost less than 1/5 of that, and that would include all new coolant. Maybe someone else can comment whether that's an appropriate cost for that type of maintenance.

My '96 was leaking at the radiator tank joint for a couple years, but only when it got really really cold out. I never noticed anything on the ground, only what would blow back on the underside, so maybe it only leaked for a short period until it warmed up enough to seal itself back up. In my case it was never really lost enough coolant to notice a significant change in the overflow tank level. Finally pulled the radiator myself (easier than I thought it would be) and took it to a local shop where they recrimped both tank joints, that seemed to take care of it (for now anyway). I've also noticed on mine that after a flush-n-fill it can take a while for the system to get all the air out, during which time the overflow will need to be topped up. In fact, seems like my owner's manual even talks about this specific issue on the V6, and from what I remember they gave a surprisingly long time period to allow all the air to work out. The first time I changed the coolant I thought I had a problem and even had the dealer check it out, and they said the same thing.

Steve