For the past few weeks after driving my truck to operating temperature i can smell coolant, at a stop light or anytime i shut it off and walk by it. The smell is getting stronger to the point i can sometimes even smell it when im driving. Ive checked all the fluids and they are fine and never change. It doesnt overheat or anything like that either. Ive looked at the water pump cause a few weeks back on a cold morning start up what i thought sounded like a bad water pump bearing sound. No leaks, cant find anything anywhere around the radiator..no where. Whatever it is im sure its not good but i gotta find it. Is there anywhere else that could leak or cause the smell of coolant. Im stumped

 

look down under the intake manifold, on top of the block. see if there is antifreeze sitting there.

 

dry as a bone. not even any dark spots where it might have been wet before, at least the areas i could see. hmm

 

:o oops

 

Forgot to look at year of your truck. could be the heater hose under the intake or it could be the rear of the intake gasket on the passenger side. common area to seep. a few little drops of a/f smells for a while. that may be why you are not seeing much difference in fluid level

 

probly heater core

 

Ill check those areas out, if thats possible. Thanks

 

x2, I'd check the heater core if no leaks under the hood are obvious, and do it before the thing lets loose like an incontinent monkey and spews coolant onto the floor of the cab.

Now THAT'S a sentence!!

 

The smell seems to be coming from the engine bay though. If you get out while its running or even after you shut it down you can walk to the front grill or front wheel wells and smell it pretty strong. I can smell it from the cab sometimes but thats with my window down at a stop or in a drive thru, still seeming to be coming from up front.

 

I guess the next question would be, how's the heat working in the cab, is it crankin' out the btu's like it always has? Could be a leak in the hose that feeds the heater core before the firewall.

 

Now that you mention that i have noticed it takes longer to get hot air to come out and isnt that hot when it does. I just thought it was because its been hitting the 30's here and takes longer.

 

Yeah, the heater cores seem to clog up and leak on pick ups moreso than in cars, no idea why.

They're a bitch to replace too (at least on my cousins Silverado it was). BUT, by all means replace it before it does leak into the cab because once that crap gets inside the stench lingers for months.. lol

7-8 years is pretty much primetime for one to go out. You should be able to find a re-manufactured replacement for not too steep. The removing and installing is the biggest headache.

 

I had the same problem, smell outside of cabin, or if you are stopped at a red light then you can also smell it. Turned out to be the left hand side of the radiator under the shroud has a leak. I found it when I removed the shroud to replace the water pump (noisy). It is not leaking enough to hit the ground but when the radiator heats up then you smell it. Raditor should be here today, fun tonight. I had to replace the heater core about a month ago, it drains out above the CAT and then onto the ground. That was not fun at all. A good 8 hours of work.
Tennfan

 

Two places that I had leaking with about the same problem was the cap was bad and caused a squeaking sound especially after revving. Also had the head gaskets go bad and were leaking on the outsides edges of the block.

 

Things sure changes in respect to parts replacement, it took about one hour to replace my heater core on my 89 E150 van 5L motor. not much to that as compare to others I had before.
roltech