Dried coolant found on oil pan

Ok, I think my (original) water pump is going its death dance....

Something in the belts area of my car has been squeaking once the engine is warm. I just dropped the belly pan, and there is dried coolant all over the passenger side of the oil pan.

I'm going to go back out with a flashlight and a mirror, and see if I can spot where the leak is coming from.

If it is coming from the water pump, should I drive the car to school tomorow? I don't want to buy a new engine....

-Jason

Ok, on further examination, it seemes some creature found my engine a warm place to sleep, and chewed a coolant line?











-J

I believe No. 10 Is what is leaking, where it goes into the engine.

part number?

that's the hard line right into your H20 pump. . . .

so your pump is leaking, , ,from the back.

somebody with some more experience may correct me. but I think you are back to replacing the h20 pump.

PN is 038 121 065 AM, also use washer 06B 121 687. $58 at Impex. It seemes to be leaking where it goes into the engine... so maybee it isnt chewed? There is definatly a nest of some sort on the engine though... that's what the 3rd picture is.

-J

that almost looks like a blown head gasket to me

Well, at least it's not the usual place to be losing coolant if the H2O pump is shot. I couldn't make out the "nest" in the pics but it seems strange that something would chew a hard line and make it leak. Maybe the joint where it goes to the engine and is sealed by the gasket failed? If it's not the H2O pump, perhaps you can get it to Martys' garagemahal for a laying-on of the hands. Good luck!

The third picture appears to have some sort of a crack.

ETKA lists a seal at the end of the line where it goes into the engine (its number 11 in the diagram) It was hard to get a picture of the nesting material... but that's defintally what it looked like.

-J

Are you shure it's not the hard plastic tube that comes strait out of the block under the inj pump? That's about $14 at the dealer with the oring.

Jason, yes, that's the piece that seemes to be leaking. I plugged the PN in to impex and it came back at $58.

I'm gunna get a new o-ring and see if that fixes things. From what I could tell, it looks like its leaking where it exits the block.

Should I drain any of the coolant before I take that out? The other end of it is hooked to the overflow tank... so I'll at least want to drain that.

-Jason

You may want to change out your thermostat while you’re in there if your car has several years or higher mileage. That’s where the thermostat is. I’ve replaced my thermostat and at that location the coolant bottle will empty, along with all the coolant in the block.

This is the first time I've seen a leak there. I'll be following this to see if its the fix.

I had a clients leaking 2 weeks ago. The o-ring and the 4" plastic part was $14.76 w/ tax.

oldpoopie said:

This is the first time I've seen a leak there. I'll be following this to see if its the fix.

Click to expand...

I remember a year or so back someone mentioned that they had their block replaced under warranty because there was a casting flaw causing a coolant leak. But that may have been the head and it may have been on an ALH engine.

It was a major component replaced due to a flawed casting leaking coolant though, that part I'm really sure about.

I was talking with JETaah on the phone today... he says he'se seen this before too. All that was required was replacement of the O ring. Of course there are 2 different sizes, with the split somewhere between 99.5 and 2000... so it's a coin toss as to which one my car has. At least they're cheap!

-J

Make sure the plastic isn't cracked though.

compu_85 said:

I was talking with JETaah on the phone today... he says he'se seen this before too. All that was required was replacement of the O ring. Of course there are 2 different sizes, with the split somewhere between 99.5 and 2000... so it's a coin toss as to which one my car has. At least they're cheap!

-J

Click to expand...

The o-ring that I was refering to is numbered #11 in the illustration.
I have had to replace a couple of these lately on A4s.
There is a split in o-ring/metal pipe(#10) design depending on the VIN so either research it or get both rings and cover yourself. They are only a few bucks each.
It is a pain to get at and I wound up having to remove:

-the turbo oil line on the front side of the engine along with the support bolts and brackets that hold it al the way around to the rear of the engine,
-the coolant flange on the head (you can leave the hoses attached),
-the dipstick's orange tube,
-the wiring for:
the injection pump,
the oil pressure sender,
#3 injector
and engine speed sensor from the pipe's bracket,

and probably a couple other things(#12, 38 in the illustration) to get enough clearance to pull the pipe out of the block and gain access to the o-ring. This will also give you access to the blocks bore that the pipe fits into. It is usually rusty and has to be cleaned up to a solid suface for the repair to make sense. A chunk of green pad has worked for me.

Don't forget to get
(2) new copper washers for the turbo oil supply line.
O-ring for coolant flange on the head

And that's why Glen is doing it

-Jason

MOGolf preformed the 180k service on my car this past weekend, and replaced the coolant pipe and the o ring. No more leak

But it seems as if the EGR is stuck open now.... the car has less power, and the CEL is on for a P1403 code :/

-J

Cause of the problem was degraded vaccuum lines. New hoses solved the problem.

-Jason

Clarification: I replaced the o-ring on the pipe. The pipe was not replaced.

I looked at my own car tonight and there's a very slight ring of pink forming around that pipe seal. One more thing to do at the next timing belt change (if it lasts).

What mileage are we seeing these fail at?

jasons car had 175k on the ticker...

And it failed kinda suddenly too. I was under the car not too long before and didn't spot anything amiss. It may have been leaking slowly though, that area is hard to see.

-J

oldpoopie said:

What mileage are we seeing these fail at?

Click to expand...

I did 2 so far:

2000 beetle w/ 86K

99.5 Jetta w/ 123k

One of either type of o-ring.

the NB's seal looked like it was chewed on.

The Jetta had a history of a sick cooling system. When I did the timing belt and water pump at 80k on this car there were shreds of the coolant reservoir's internal baffle thoughout the system. The baffle had completely disintegrated and there was a black scum layer of either rubber or something deposited on the walls of the reservoir. I don't think it was oil but I can't be sure. Never seen anything like it.

I'll throw a guess out to the substance. Mine just did it to right before the head gasket went. There was clear evidence of migration from the combustion chamber under the head gasket to the water jacket. There was a little carbon tunnel. The coolant had started to get slightly dark in the past few weeks so I'd say it was soot.

MOGolf said:

I looked at my own car tonight and there's a very slight ring of pink forming around that pipe seal. One more thing to do at the next timing belt change (if it lasts).

Click to expand...

That quote was back in March of '06. I finally got around to replacing it last Sunday since I forgot about replacing it at the timing belt change in '06. It hadn't leaked as bad as Jason's (original poster of this thread), but I wasn't going to let it go any longer.

As I have seen before, the seal just wears down smooth. That pipe must get a lot of vibration combined with heat/cooling expansion/contraction cycles. All of these engines will experience this seal failure.