Steam and water loads of it, is it core plugs? OH! SH*T! HELP PLEASE!!

[Green Dwarf]

My lovely little car is dead and off the road. Steam blasting up from bonnet and grills. Water running out from under engine. Mostly down the exhaust just after the horizontal straight as in the pipes come out of the block then go down after the turbo.

So what I mean is that, just after that exhaust bend, in the horizontal pipe run traveling rearwards, Is the point where the majority of this water exits to ground. It is dribbling of the exhaust at this point. Any ideas?

Radiator was empty, viewed from top with cap off, and the water leaking out from underneath the car smelt only faintly of antifreeze or screen wash type smell. - Not the strong smell of antifreze you would normally expect from a coolant leak.

I know I HAVE F***D UP BIG TIME! - Back in the autumn, I remember I did top up the expansion bottle with neat anti freeze, but not been able to get any fluid in the rad. I reckon with the extreem low temperatures these past few days the coolant has frozen and burst something. The question is what?

Although the water exits to ground via the exhaust elbow to horizontal, which is toward the front of the engine. The source of the steam, and there is an awfull lot of it, is well back from this. It is (appears to be!) comming from the rear of the block, between the bulk head, centraly from the rear of the block, about 200mm - 400mm below the fuel injectors.

- Too much steam to be any more accurate! -But a lot of steam at high pressure, the strongest source of the steam leak I can find, blasts up drivers side (RHD car) of engine block bulkhead. This is where I suspect the souce to be, but there is so much steam all over I could be very wrong!

What are the likeley causes of this, beyond my idiot self for not properly checking the anti freeze. What am I considerring and, what is involved in remedy and likely costs? Where do I go, and what do I do ? - What other damage might be done, and how do I assess? - What's the OUCH! Factor! - How much is this likely gonna hurt?


Oh My! What Have I done? : (

Please Advise, Please Help?- Mike

 

[Odin]

If its coming from the rear of the engine then its far more likely to be one of the rear water hoses matey.



Rob

 

[nismo-400R]

like odin says mate itll probably be the water hoes at the back of the block quite common to start leaking,its changin them that is the hard part :-D

 

[stevepudney]

Mike

Unfortunately for you the source of your water leak are the "usual suspect" pipes at the rear of the block. I say unfortunate, because they can be a right pain to get to at without removing the engine.

If you look at the images below, you will see a few of the pipes I'm talking about highlighted by the yellow lines, they "can" be a pain to get to because you might have the dreeded "Y" bracket in place, you can see this large "pain in the ar$e" bracket covering the pipes in question in the 2nd picture.

If the bracket is in place, it is virtually imposible to remove and replace all the pipes and make good water tight conections with the clips without removing/dropping the engine. The "Y" bracket will only still be in place if Bruce removed it and left it off when the engine was rebuilt, standing on the passenger side of the car looking down the back of the block you will be able to see if the bracket is still in situ.

If it's not there, then you do stand a good chance of lying underneath the car and getting your hands on the suspect pipe, once the split/loose pipe is located, you might then be able to order a new pipe and clips from Nissan and replace it.

Hope this helps

I wish I could help you further but I have now moved to the other end of the country.

Let me know how you get on

Steve

 

[gtir bean]

maybe the water pipe that goes to the turbo from the front of the block?

 

[Fast Guy]

If you mean it's running onto the exhaust under the oil filter area, that's exactly where my standard oil cooler water pipes were leaking onto. (You can just about make them out on the last picture above, the 2 vertical yellow lines)

 

[Green Dwarf]

Thanks very much for the advice guys! Sounds like I best fill her up with coolant run her and look for split hoses. Thanks very much Steve for the detailed reply and excellent photos.

Now I Have much clearer idea of whats down that murky gap behind the block and the bulk head. I would not have suspected cooling hoses there, other than ones going to the cabin heater!

I will check for the Y bracket, but I suspect that if it was at all unnecessary Bruce would have binned it. His philosophy being, if it does nowt, chuck it out! Of what remained he drilled lots of big holes in `provided it did not destroy its function'.

Which was wonderfull when getting the shopping out of the back on a dark night, regularly slicing my hands on the various raw metal edges of holes swarf, and sawn brackets! - Two hours whith a file cured that. Maybe I will give Bruce a file as a present! perhaps he doesesnt know what they are for? ; ) Wink

If the engine has to come out Should I replace all of these Hoses unless they look very new and are there any other things I should replace or do while the engine is out?

 

[stevepudney]

If the engine has to come out Should I replace all of these Hoses unless they look very new and are there any other things I should replace or do while the engine is out?

As they are such a pain you would be wise to replace all 6 of the rubber water pipes in this area whilst your at it and unfortunately because youv'e had a water leak down there I dought you'll be able to tell whats new and whats old. There was a group buy with Samco to produce all these pipes in silicon,

heres the link for the group buy

so as you will have missed the group buy you might want to contact Samco.

You could go absolutely made and strip out all sorts of stuff, but if it aint broke don't fix it as you could create a right old mess but thats about it for the pain in the ar$e, hard to get too, perishables down the back of the block.

Anything else I can help with then just ask.

Hope that helps Mike

Steve