Low Coolant?

[kivetts04dmax]

I've been running my truck for about 13k miles without any issues and all of the sudden my low coolant indicator comes on one morning. I changed my oil today and it looked good, can't see any wet spots anywhere. I have a merchant alum coolant tank and the coolant was barely visible in the bottom of the tank. I added a gal of 50/50 I had laying around. Would anyone have a guess to why or where I'd be losing coolant?

 

[DIESELMAFIAPER.LB7]

Gaskets or water pump hose feel good still

 

[SickLL7Crenshaw]

Hmm well as you said no wet spots. Turbo lines not leaking or water pump seeping? There is also a plate on the adapter plate/rear cover on the pass side at 2 o'clock on the plate that also can leak Jason. Your not seeing the coolant system pressurizing are you? Hard upper rad hose after cool down?

Sent from my B15 using Tapatalk

 

[Harbin_22]

Is it a lot colder there then normal?

 

[kivetts04dmax]

I'll have to check water pump, I have my winter cover and stuff on now. I couldn't see anything leaking under the heads.

Blake, how much time after cool down should I check? It's been a couple hours since I've ran it.

It had been really cold here but like I said I've been running a winter cover for about a month now. Today got to 50* but it will be 8* tomorrow and like -3* tomorrow night.

 

[kivetts04dmax]

truck runs a constant 183-186 cruising at 60-65, same as without winter cover

 

[SickLL7Crenshaw]

After 2 hours it should be pretty well cooled especially in these temps. You should almost squeeze your fingers together when you check your hose. It shouldn't feel like a tennis ball or you might have HG issues.

 

[kivetts04dmax]

Hose feels soft like normal, only thing wet I can see anywhere on the truck is where my grid heater is and where it bolts to the egr pipe, there seems to be a lot of oil coming from there. I do have some egr block plates in there.

 

[tripleturbo]

Mine was leaking at the heater hose. It was a very slow leak, never left a puddle in the garage or anything like that.

 

[kivetts04dmax]

where the heater hose goes into the thermostat housing or up by the firewall? it's dry up there just wet/oily around the grid heater and where it connects to the egr pipe

 

[dmaxbowtie]

I've had two tough coolant leaks to find. the first one was the metal tube that bolts to the engine that you can see from the passenger fender well. the weld broke and had a pinhole spraying onto the ex manifold so there were no signs of a leak besides coolant loss and the second one was a brand new o ring on the pipe that goes into the oil cooler. you could always try some gm coolant tablets

 

[kivetts04dmax]

what do the tablets do?

 

[tripleturbo]

where the heater hose goes into the thermostat housing or up by the firewall? it's dry up there just wet/oily around the grid heater and where it connects to the egr pipe

Not to sure as I couldn't find it and had someone do a leak down test to find it and fix it. If I remember right it was at the egr pipe but not 100% sure. It would leak down the passenger side, back of the engine block, but would never leak enough to have a puddle anywhere. It was leaking for months before I got it looked at.

 

[dmaxbowtie]

what do the tablets do?

The tablets swell rubber seals that may be leaking, I could be wrong but I think gm reccomends them when you do a full coolant change?