I recently replaced all of the coolant hoses and the thermostat housing on my LR3. Coolant was seeping at various hose joints and through the plastic housing beforehand, now I can't find a single drop anywhere or any evidence of a leak and I am literally checking on a daily basis at every single new connection that I made. Nevertheless, I seem to be losing about 1/8" to 1/4" in the level at the reservoir each time I drive, depending on how many miles I drive. The temperature gauge has stayed dead in the center of the range on the dashboard. I was very thorough in completing the full bleed process 4 times. Is it normal for a very small amount of air to continue to be purged each time I drive for a few miles/weeks after introducing air into the system? Thanks -Evan
Hi Evan, I had the same issue last year, and the cause was the cap of the reservoir. If this is not the problem, you could try to put some dust o something similar on every joint and get out and drive for some miles. Then check if one of those places have some marks of water passing. Hope this help you, tell us if you find the issue to have it as a new checkpoint.
Thanks for the reply Gonzalo! I'll keep monitoring it for now, to make sure it doesn't level out and stop dropping, then give the cap a shot. I will update here if I find another reason for it, for sure.
Also, check the weep hole in the underside of the water pump. It could leak very slowly from that location and travel to nooks and crannies that you won't see. If there are signs of coolant coming from weep hole, time to replace water pump.
There’s a coolant hose under the inlet manifold that can leak coolant and it can pool on the top of the block. It can also get into the oil and I had elevated levels of silicates when I had an oil analysis done at the time.
Anglotron, I have actually just replaced all the hoses, including that one (actually posted a guide on how I did it without removing the intake manifold in the other forum), and I check the area just above that hose from each and every time I drive now, seems bone dry. Nevertheless, it is a brand new hose, and I verified it was full seated before reinstalling the throttle body, etc. Thanks so much for the tip, though! LVDaytripper, I will keep an eye on the underside of the water pump. Thanks! Fingers crossed, the last time I check the coolant level it hadn't moved at all since my last top off (which was only to pour about 1/8" of level into the reservoir). Also, to be fair, I have less than 200 miles on my car since I did the work on the coolant hoses. It is possible I jumped the gun on getting worried about seeing rock-steady coolant levels. In any case, I appreciate the input guys!
I recall that my Buick Roadmaster with the 5.7 V8 coolant level was slowly dropping but only rarely would I see any drips on the garage floor, and when I did, it was somewhat under the water pump area. Ultimately it turned out to be the water pump leaking at the front seal but for it to actually drip out when parked, the shaft had to stop at a particularly orientation. When driving, fluid would seep out under pressure but also evaporate due to being hot and air movement. I routinely put that blue UV dye into my AC system when recharging. I presume the same can be done re engine coolant. If you had coolant leaking into the engine, I think you would see foam on the engine oil dipstick, (if the engine still has one). The odds are the problem is the water pump but could be a hose or the pipes leading to the rear heater as well - those are pretty much hidden.
