Cooling System Leak 2016 Minnie Winnie 27Q

[akeagle]

On our trip to Indiana and back to NM last August during the ritual morning oil check, I noticed there was a slight reduction in the antifreeze level in the coolant reservoir. This continued for the 3 day trip there and the 3 day trip back home. The odd thing was that I could not find where any actual leakage was occurring. I topped off the reservoir a couple times and called it good.

Fast forward to yesterday when I was winterizing our Minnie Winnie, I started the engine to let it run for a while to fully charge the chassis battery as I added the pink stuff to the plumbing system. After the engine reached operating temperature I walked past the front end noticed coolant leaking onto the driveway at a pretty significant rate. I slide underneath and noted that the antifreeze was dripping off the bottom of the steering gear. Got out from under to look at it from topside and at first could not see where the leak was coming from.

After some poking around and feeling the bottom side of the hose leading from the bottom of the reservoir to the lower radiator hose, I found a pinhole leak in that hose about 8 - 10 inches from the reservoir where it snakes behind a fusebox then descends to that radiator hose near the bottom of the engine. There is a protective sleeve around the hose where it goes past that fusebox and while area is quite packed, there was no visible chaffing on the hose of sleeve.

Since we're not planning to use the MH until spring, I'm going to delay the repair for 2 or 3 months. My plan to fix the leak is to cut the hose exactly where the pinhole is and rejoin the ends with a hose splicer and clamps, assuming the hose appears to be otherwise in good condition, and add some tie wraps to ensure there will be no more chaffing in that area.

[deckape]

Why not just replace the hose ,since you will have to drain the coolant anyway ? You are adding another possible leak by adding a connection . The hose is 7 years old , and possibly ready to be replaced anyway .

[akeagle]

Originally Posted by deckape

Why not just replace the hose ,since you will have to drain the coolant anyway ? You are adding another possible leak by adding a connection . The hose is 7 years old , and possibly ready to be replaced anyway .

Good point about the age of the hose and I'll definitely look more closely at the bottom end of it. But at first glance it seems to join the radiator hose just before the water pump and it appears that hose as well as two others are molded into the big hose because no clamps are visible. Never saw anything like that before.

Again, I'll check on this, but that looks like a mighty expensive assembly and that makes the "cheap fix" pretty tempting.

[Morich]

One way to get better info for planning is to go to a store and tell them exactly which hose on exactly which model engine and let them either show you the hose or at least they are likely to have drawings. If it is a really weird hose as it sounds from the description, I would want to know before jumping into repair.

However, I will also admit that most of what I used to know about cars has become obsolete. My last hose repair was on a car and caused by the folks who added the plates for the tow bar. They took the horn mount off to get the plates on and left it turned so it rubbed the lower radiator to make a hole after about 16-18 months.
The shock came when it cost several hundred dollars to repair because the fender had to be removed to access that area.
And yes, I did lots of checking around before paying the price. Several local shops ran more than five hundred to change a radiator hose on a Ford!