Yesterday I noticed some smoke coming from under the hood of my RX. I opened up the hood to check and see what was going on and I have coolant pooling up on top of the engine under the intake manifold. Does anyone have any idea what this could be? Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

 

Best,

 

Mike

Mike, I'm guessing it isn't overheating. How does the thermostat housing look? How about the gasket between the engine and the manifold? There is a coolant hose that runs by there on EA-82 engines but I think it is just there on carbed engines.

Ben-

 

I've had no overheating problems at all. I had the car serviced by Kerven Subaru about 2 weeks ago and they had indicated to me that the coolant level was low at that time (they added some). The thermostat housing looks good. The coolant appears to be originating somewhere at the rear right of the engine (turbo side), although it could be just running back there from somewhere else. The area around the coolant temp sensor is dry.

 

Mike

center top of engine block: there is a very small hose that connects from the thermostat to this metal pipe sticking out of the block just under the front of the intake.

 

this is one small hose that can create a leak.

 

The next is the coolant flow from the thermostat to the turbo.

 

the third is the heater core lines .... they might of sprung a seeping leak?

 

just a few suggestions to consider.

don't forget the little hose that comes from the intake to the turbo coolant passage.. its on the left side though..

as was said above, there are a bunch of small, fuel line sized coolant hoses that run through the manifold. Thats the first problem I ever encountered in one of my turbo soobs.. took forever to trace. but a fairly simply fix once I found it.(it was the one on the passenger side that runs from the t-stat housing to the throttle body.. I replaced them with high pressure fuel line, as true replacements are dealer only parts... been 2 years and 30,000 miles with no problems(at least with the cooling system:rolleyes: )

are you sure it is coolant? If your power steering pump has red fluid, then it could be leaking on top of the block.

 

Also there is a water pipe that bolts to the back of the intake manifold. It could be that too.

My money is on one of the small diameter water hoses. Probably the one from the T-stat housing to the top of the block. You may not even see the leak at idle, try reving the motor while looking for the source.

My money is with Russ.It sounds like the little hose from under the intake to the T-stat housing.My opinion:change the intake manifold gaskets,turbo feed and return hoses and turbo gaskets and live comfortably for a while.Don't forget the hose with the foil wrap too.

 

If money is way tight then at least the intake gaskets and the little hose at the same time.

for my 2 cents i recently worked on a rx with the same problem

turned out the intake manifold gasket on the drivers side had gone to crap and was letting coolant into the intake ports and out onto the head as well

 

look around the base the manifold where it bolts to the heads for water streaks or tracks

also a good time to replace those itty bitty hoses with the intake off