My Eagle and I have a love/hate relationship... PLEASE HELP!

[mrbusto71]

Thanks for all the advice guys. Had to sell the car. I'll get an Eagle again... someday.

-Alain

[Sunny]

Is it leaking out of the cap, or overflow?

You might have air in the system, or a faulty cap if it's coming from there. You might have to purge the system. If you lost too much coolant, you might have had air in the block and filled it.

[mrbusto71]

It leaks from the bottom, where the radiator hose connects to the engine. Like, there's the bottom radiator hose, that comes out and goes up, behind the engine fan and into a connection there. That's where I'm about 85-90% sure it's leaking from.

And when I first noticed it was overheating (which was obvious really quickly because it was whistling loudly and the therm was all the way to H), I pulled over immediately, let it cool down for about 45 minutes, then drove it another 5-6 blocks to get home, and haven't really driven it since for fear of breaking something. I replaced that lower hose thinking that was the problem, test drove it for about 7-8 blocks when the heat started climbing again, and got home before it red-lined and that's when I noticed where I thought it was leaking from and that it was still leaking in general.

[Eagleearl]

The lower radiator hose hooks to the waterpump. It could  be that the waterpump seal is bad and the antifreeze is leaking out the weep hole and running down on the lower radiator hose. That is what happened to me this spring and I replaced the lower radiator hose first thinking that was where it was leaking but found out it was the waterpump.

[txjeeptx]

I agree with Eagleearl, and the squealing you hear could be either a wet belt slipping on a pulley, or the bearing in the water pump complaining about being full of coolant instead of grease. I bet the water pump is failing.

Do yourself a favor and check the oil to see if you have done any damage to the engine - if the head gasket failed from overheating, the oil will have coolant in it and look like milkshake. Look in the oil fill hole, as well as the dipstick, or change the oil if you're due.

Also, when filing a cooling system, never use pure water unless its an emergency, always use a 50/50 mix of antifreeze and filtered/demineralized water - you don't want to use well water/hard water or municipal supply, since thery're usually full of minerals that will build up scaler inside the radiator and heater core. 50/50 mix coolant is better at absorbing heat, since the antifreeze raises the boiling point of the water when its mixed into solution. It also prevents corrosion, where straight water, when heated to near its boiling point, is a decent corrosive agent. That's why steam cleaning stuff like carpets works so well.

Finally, if your cooling system has even a tiny weep of a leak anywhere, its losing pressure, and pressure in the cooling system prevents the coolant from boiling. Raising the pressure of a closed system containing a fluid will raise the boiling point of the fluid. Fix all leaks, no matter how small, and the radiator cap can be a leak source - its supposed to hold up to the pressure its rated to.