Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting missing coolant?

zetec with 115k

made a trip back from pittsburgh yesterday with out any incident, at least I think. I did smell coolant or a burning smell every so often but when I passed all the cars I was around it went away

I take a look at the coolant level part way home and it dropped a little bit, from just over max to just under. I think nothing of it. well when I went out last night I park my car and notice the side is all wet, no rain anywhere so it had to be something else. look a the coolant level and it is inch and a half below the minimum line. The whole trip the temp gage was a bit higher than normal, it has always been between R and M but has been more on M. Well I stop at my grnadmothers since it is on my way home to put some water in to help with the cooling, wanted to changed it again anyway. When I get the cap off the level back flows to the max mark.

What is going on? there are no signs of a problem. the engine is still running good and strong. But I am worried now about overheating it. We did replace the coolant last year because it was very brown looking, it still was after the change but not as bad.

I looked last night with a flash light and there were no signs of a broken hose or anything. The engine was dry

turns out I think I got soaked in oil from another car I passed that was smoking really badly since the front of the car is covered in this junk also, not just the side

According to what you say, I could think that it is the cap, that is bad and cannot get enough pressure,
It happens to me, if I turn off the engine above R the reservoir starts to boil, after 5 or 6 times the level drops about 1 inch, but I don't worry just try to keep the level in the max line,
maybe your cap is in realy bad conditions and in fact needs change,

right the cap is leaking not allowing the system to pressurize. The efficency of the cooling system can be reduced up to 50% by lack of proper pressure. Also, coolant can locally boil in hot areas of the engines like the cylinder heads.

A very likely possibility is that coolant did locally boil casuing some coolant to vaporize and some of the vapor got trapped in the engine, while the rest was being vented out the cap hence your burning coolant smell. This entrapped vapor, when you shut down the engine, it was hot and as all gasses do it was expanded. Its possible that the cap's check valve that does not allow anything to get into the system is working fine, so as the engine cooled and the gas contracted it created a vacuum and because the system is sealed the coolant was not able to overcome and flow into the empty space, but as soon as you poped the cap the coolant flowed right in.

My suggestion, re-fill the system with the porper mix ratio of coolant and water. Then with the cap off allow the engine to run until fully warmed up and the thermostat opens. Once the thermostat is opened set the engine to a high idle 1500 to 2000 RPM with the heat on and watching the temperature guage to avoid overheating this will allow the water pump to quickly circulate to try and expell this vapor from the engine. I wouldn't be suprised if you saw several bubbles flow out from the egnine.

Another thing to check is:

Jack up the driver's side front wheel. Take a flash light and get under the engine. The water pump has a "weap hole" under the pulley that vents a little coolant when the seal starts to go bad. You'' be able to see a little trail of coolant dripping down the WP. Mine just started doing that...and the little bit of coolant leaking out was getting flung off the pulley onto hot engine parts...hence the smell...

jay and everyone else thanks for the comments

I will try running the car with the cap off and see where the level goes to

the only odd thing about the whole think is that coming back from pittsburgh to scranton I got 32 miles to the gallon

also when we checked the coolant in all our cars before the winter, since it was going to be so cold, the coolant in my car check out fine. we run a 50/50 mix

also does it matter that the level was just above max when I checked it before leaving?

well I just let the car run with the heat on although I didn't allow it to come up to temp first. there were no large bubbles and i could see that a little coolant was returning to the tank. I did nptice a stream of tiny white bubble comming from the bottom of the tank from the inlet there, in the front corner, after shutting the car off

water will not circulate between the engine and resivor unitl the thermostat opens at least on my car. Not sure if the 4 cylinder cooling system is plumed differntly than a 6 cyl. or not.

When the coolant/water mixture is agitated it makes lots of tiny bubbles.

wanted to clear up on point that I stated before. The back flow of coolant into the tank was when the car was hot, I had just driven in 10 miles or so on the highway.

does this still hold with the cap being bad?