Driving home today I noticed my 98 ford f-150 4.6 triton was getting hot and i could smell hot antifreeze , when I got out to investigate , antifreeze was pouring off the bottom of the truck , i opened the hood and i cant for the life of me figure out whats leaking , its leaking in the rear of the motor against the firewall right above the transmission, but because of the intake manifold i couldnt tell where, i even looked from the bottom but cant tell, im bummed cause i know if i cant see it , how the heck can i fix it , without dropping the trans or manifold to see it , was hoping there might be a good ford mechanic here thanks Doug

i posted this in another forum and here is 2 follow ups please help if you can.

Could be the heater core leaking out the AC drain tube, or a heater hose.
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i'll keep you guy's abreast of the outcome , im going to go out and see if i can find it in a little bit , hey homer if it was coming out the a/c drain tube , wouldn't that stuff exit down low? and im pretty sure i could see all of the heater hoses,didnt seem to be coming from that area.
ive got fluid spraying everywhere up really high seems to be right in the middle, right behind the intake its spraying up on the valve covers,firewall , leakingdown the bellhousing all over both sides ,and on the starter etc, when i got under the truck it had sprayed all over the back of the truck driping from the rearend its a pretty big leak.
this is not driveable at this point fluid starts puring out once the temp goes up, i just cant see it .
im going to see if i can borrow a code tester and see if it had any codes come on since ive always had the dummy light on for a gross air leak in the emissions (cant remember the code # , one other thing i remembered last nite was for the past couple days it was making like a faint horn blowing sound , as i would turn off the key

 

Now that the engine is cold, fill up the radiator coolant recovery reservoir with water and start the engine. Look for leaks while the engine is cold and you should be able to find it. I would pay close attention to the hoses going into the heater core.

Regards

Jean Marc Chartier

 

that would be my guess...a bad heater core coupler/connector at the firewall, or a freeze plug.

 

ok here is a little more info ,it started raining so i had to stop :
, the leak is coming down the passenger side even with the motor off , i filled the radiator and went to start it and fluid was pouring already without it running , i still cant tell where , but it is above the cylinder /block area , somewhere near the intake /head area
the highest point i can see from the bottom is a small black bracket that has some loom hose running threw , the water is dripping off of that onto the bellhousing , from the top i really cant see anything.
does that help? its definatly not in an area that can be seen easily
or from the top without a mirror, its definatly coming from behind the motor between the eng and firewall.
i spoted the freeze plug and it looked good, how many are on the passanger side? i only saw one about the size of a 50 cent peice.
hope this helps?

 

well it looks like the heater line right where its pressed into the block ?
is leaking , the line is flared, and bottoms out on the block ,right at the flared part its got a little hole that is ****in horizontaly to the drivers side, that why it was steaming on the drivers side , i think this thing is possesed ,once i found the leak , i started flushing the system , and i noticed it quit leaking ? im like what the ******* ,it was leaking like crazy you could actually see the fill tank going down fast then it just quit? ,my guess is that debree lodged in the hole ? anyway for the time being i put some copper stop leak in the system, and i'll fill it back up tomorrow, and see what happens? that will give me time to order that little peice of tube thats pressed in , im assuming its pressed in ?
is there anything special about getting that peice out? and getting it back in? it's tight back there but i sure dont want to pull the manifold ,one more thing ,the number 4 cylinder got brought up ? are these things known to blow a head gasket there ?
as i was looking for the leak , it looked like there might be a small leak there that has been there for a while the bottom of the starter had signs that rusty water had been dripping around it for a while ,hope im just jumping to conclusions , but if it is leaking is there any tell tell signs? will the spark plug show anything? should i pull it and have a look?