Coolant Low...Coolant Odor....D@MN!

[abesmith69]

Guys!

Well this Coolant thing just started out as a "Low Coolant Light" issue. Now it has turn into a bad coolant odor inside the car when I use my heater/air condition it seems. When I let the car heat up I have a white smoke coming through my vents or just through the car. The white smoke is coming from the right side of my car (if your sitting behind the wheel).... I know nothing really about cooling systems or how it works....no im kind of in the dark....only thing I cant tell you is there is a black bottle on the right side and it appears as if something is leaking from that area. It must be coolant because I was over heating yesterday and I put coolant in it today and the smell was very faint......im not driving the car so there shouldnt be any damage.

Let me know what you guys think!

Thanks a bunch you guys are great!

-Abe

P.S. I HAD TO DRIVE A 4 CYL TO WORK!!! THIS IS A CATASTROPHY!

[Mustang_289]

Sounds like your heater-core has sprung a leak. If you don't have A/C easy job - if you do have A/C your dash needs to come out.

[86StangGT]

Hey man, it seems to me that the heater core is leaking. That is pretty common on older fox mustangs like yours. If you want a cheap fix but no heat you can bypass the hose into your heater core from the firewall in the engine compartment. I will be on the passenger side firewall, can't miss it. Or you can bring it to a shop, the average price for labor and parts is around $300 to $500. You can get a Haynes manual and do it yourself but you had better know what your doing because the whole dash needs to come down. Hope this helps any

[abesmith69]

Holy Hell....thats not good!

If the bypass thing will work for now thats what I will do......if you could give me some general instructions on how I would go about doing this and what I would need that would help a whole lot....

Thanks a bunch
-Abe

[Mustang_289]

We just did ours several weeks ago. If you have A/C than you have to completly remove the dash. Remove the two heater hoses connecting to the core from the firewall - engine side. Remove the A/C dryer attached to the firewall. There are a 7/16 nuts that need to be taken off that hold the A/C hose and dryer in place. Taking out the dash is really not hard - just time consuming and requires patience! Once the dash is out - you need to remove the A/C housing that's in front of the heater core. Once that's removed, the heater core is easily removeable.

Reverse the process to re-install. This job does require patience - if you have it - you can do this job - if you don't pay someone to do it - as your really going to get pissed off.

[avbcon12]

Abe, if your asking about how to bypass it just take a peice of hose (5/8) and disconnect them (from the firewall) and connect the two lines together that enter the firewall on the passenger side of the engine, you cant miss them they are pretty big hoses.

or you can just get a male to male coupler and just put both hoses on that so you wont have to use another peice of hose.
this is what i would do (less prone to leaking because only one joint)

and thats really all there is to it.

if you need any specific questions answered let me know

abeer1220@hotmail.com

hope it helps
adam

[Fox Body]

YEah abe, I can't say anything that wasn't already said. It is your heater core and just like everyone else said, it's a pain IF you have A/C.

To re-route you hoses, standing in front of you car, open your hood (of course) and see the two hoses going into your firewall (at the back of the engine on the left side, going to the interior of the car). One comes from the water pump, the other from the lower intake. They hook directly onto the two prongs coming from the heater core (which, like I said b4, sticks out through the firewall).

Just remove the clamps on both ends of the hose that goes from the water pump to the heater core (at the firewall) and remove the entire hose. Next, on the remaining hose, remove the clamp on the end that is on the heater core, take off the hose on that end and clamp it to the water pump (where you just removed the other hose from). In addition, you should probably plug the 2 prongs sticking out from your firewall (the heater core prongs).

That's it. Should take 15 minutes, MAX.