On the way home from my vortech install I smelled antifreeze, so I pullled over and found a drop or two on top of the lowest s/c tube. I checked fluids and they looked fine, and thought that it was from the install.
A week goes by and I had it tuned today and got a whiff of it again. This time I noticed my overflow was almost dry, maybe a 1/4".

What should I be looking for and where could it be comming from.

Thanks

 

You should be looking for white smoke out your tailpipe. That would mean you're burning it. But it sounds like you're smelling fresh coolant.

Look under the car--maybe you can put a drop cloth (something that fluid can soak into and leave a stain on) under the car when you park it at night. That will tell you where it's dripping from.

--Steve

 

There is a coolant hose that runs into the oil cooler that the oil filter screws into. It has to be unplugged to install the high pressure vortech line into the oil sensor assembly. I would check to make sure that they reinstalled this hose and its clamp well.

This was the only coolant hose that I had to remove to install the Vorech.

 

That's funny cause I got white smoke comin out my tailpipe that comes and goes it seems. Wonder if it has anything to do with coolant, cause there's certainly no oil anywhere.

How can you check if that's the problem ?

 

I would check the oil, if that white smoke is from the coolant that would mean you blew a head gasket, and you would see coolant in your oil, but if that was the case your coolant level would be low also.

 

dude, just today when installing my new shocks, i had either a HUGE coolant or freon leak. the platic pan/guard was filled with the green liquid. I smell antifreeze, but my coolant tank is still full. And my A/C isn't cold which mean i'm thinking it's the freon. Anyone know if Freon has a similar smell to antifreeze?

 

R12 (Freon) hasn't been used by OEMs since the mid-90s. Your car uses R134A (a HFC). That boils at room temperature and pressure, so if you had a A/C leak, you wouldn't be seeing a puddle of R134A (it would boil away in seconds). R134A is basically odorless (slight oil smell from the lubricant which is added to it).

Antifreeze is green, smells like antifreeze, and doesn't boil until 250F at atmospheric pressure, so it can form puddles. A large puddle of green liquid that smells like antifreeze *is* antifreeze, and means you have a coolant leak.

The level in the overflow bottle doesn't indicate how much antifreeze may be in the radiator and engine if the system has a leak. In other words, for coolant to be sucked back into the radiator and engine from the overflow bottle, the system has to be able to hold a vacuum. If you have a bad leak, it can't, so the level in the overflow bottle won't be drawn down. You have to check the level in the radiator and engine.

Now since your A/C won't cool, you may have punched both the radiator and the condenser. That'll be expensive. But you may have just nicked a couple of lines ( somewhat cheaper). If the A/C system has been opened, it *must* be pumped down to vacuum before being refilled, otherwise the moisture in the air which entered will cause it to rapidly fail from internal corrosion. Have it professionally serviced if this is the case.

OTOH, the Z systems are smart, the loss of coolant may have been detected, and the computer is preventing the A/C compressor clutch from engaging to protect it. In that case, just fix the coolant leak, refill and purge the cooling system of air bubbles, the computer should notice, and then the A/C should start to work again. (You can tell if this is what's happening by noting whether the A/C clutch is engaging or not when a helper switches the A/C on and off with the engine idling.)