My car (Fodoho, 92 civic EX) leaks coolant like crazy from the driver side of the engine but I'm having a little trouble figuring out where it's coming from. Here are some pics. Sorry for the large file sizes.

*from below*

*from below*

*from below*

*from above*

For orientation, the large pulley is the crankshaft pulley and the belt you see is the alternator belt. The leak seems to be coming from behind the lower cover above the crankshaft pulley. This makes me think it's the water pump.

Am I most likely right? Anyone have this problem before? Any idea of what the leak is most likely caused by: bad o-ring, coming out of the bleed holes, etc? This is major suckage for me since I have to remove the timing belt first to inspect the water pump.

I'll be the first to admit that I know little about working on motors. Other than changing some basic maintenance stuff, I'm pretty inexperienced but willing to learn. If anyone has any tips, advice, or pointers, I'm all ears.

 

If it's got pretty high mileage, my guess would be water pump. My cousin's water pump actually just died last week in is DA Integra, and it looked similar to your pics. Do you hear like a whirring sound from around the water pump area at all? My cousin's pump was still spinning, but something was jacked internally and it made this aweful noise. If you can, remove the upper timing belt cover(since you don't have to pull the belt to do it) and see if you can see exactly where the leak is coming from.

 

:werd:

I just replaced a water pump tonight. That's exactly where it looks like it is coming from.

 

hell, it could be one of the hoses that connects to the water pump... Time to rip **** apart and find it...

 

what is with all these pumps that look fine, spin fine but jacked internally and making noises? my P/S pump did the same h:

 

naw, looks like it's coming from the seam between the wp and the block. Could be one of the rear hoses though... that's the problem with leaks - you'll rip everything apart and it'll be something stupid. :a:

 

My engine makes noises.. should I change it? :chuckles:

 

start with the simple, check all hoses and connections but my money is on the water pump (if we are talking about 90K + miles on this car)

 

Yeah... I think so. I'll trade with you! BTW, are you a distributor of Moroso crankpulley tools by any chance?

 

Thanks for the input guys. I removed the upper cover to see if I could see where the leak might be coming from but I had no real luck seeing anything. I was kind of able to see the timing belt pulley and it looked like there was a little bit of moisture around that area but I couldn't see around the waterpump area. I'm thinking that it probably is the waterpump and I might just change my timing belt and tensioner at the same time since my car has close to 130k miles and I have no idea when the previous owner changed it (my hunch is probably never judging from the condition of other things in my car...)

BTW, I took off my valve cover for the first time and this is what I saw:


I'm not sure what's normal but it looks pretty cruddy to me. What do you guys think? TIA.