Coolant leak w/ pics

[John03Z71]

For the past month or so I've occasionally smelled burning coolant from under the hood after I've parked and gotten out of my 03 5.3L Tahoe, but just the past week or so it has actually started to drip. The pics shown are from under the passenger's side looking up at the exhaust manifold. The coolant drips off the bolt at the exhaust connection. I followed the wet spot up and it seems to just stop a few inches up on the actual manifold itself. The right rear spark plug wire has a small amount of coolant on it, but I took it off and it seems almost dried up and is certainly not as wet as the manifold, and nothing else near or above it is wet. I took a picture from the top as well for perspective. Any ideas of the source?

 

[SLCHOE]

Put a coolant system pressure tester on it and pump it up to ~15-20 psi. If there's a coolant leak, it'll be pretty obvious where it is coming from. If you dont have one, you can usually put a deposit down and borrow one from o'reilly's auto parts or somewhere similar.

 

[John03Z71]

Bingo! Found it, thank you for the suggestion. It's the connection on the far passenger side as shown below. Now, what parts do I need and how do I fix it? Looks like some type of easy quick disconnect fitting but I didn't mess with it too much. Thanks again for your help.

 

[SLCHOE]

Good that you found it. Those are the heater core inlet and outlet tee-fittings. You're going to have to replace the whole tee-fitting as the part that actually seals comes with it. Just squeeze the 2 tabs with some pliers while pulling on the line. It will leak coolant so be ready with something to catch it.

http://www.partsgeek.com/catalog/2004/chevrolet/tahoe/climate_control/heater_hose_connector.html

 

[ajaxnxs]

Thanks because I am having the same issue in my KON and its the same spot!!!

 

[ajaxnxs]

I had a leaking water pump. Replaced and no more leaks

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

[John03Z71]

Good that you found it. Those are the heater core inlet and outlet tee-fittings. You're going to have to replace the whole tee-fitting as the part that actually seals comes with it. Just squeeze the 2 tabs with some pliers while pulling on the line. It will leak coolant so be ready with something to catch it.

http://www.partsgeek.com/catalog/2004/chevrolet/tahoe/climate_control/heater_hose_connector.html

Anyone have any tips or tricks on how to get this thing apart? I've tried using pliers and pinching those little white clips down as far as they will go while pulling on the metal line but I cannot get it to budge at all. Spent a good 30 minutes messing around with it and have made zero progress. Some coolant starts to leak out when I try but I guess this is more due to the gasket/seal actually being blown inside in conjunction with the movement and not technically the line coming out since it isn't really budging. Has anyone replaced this 'T' before? I don't want to go pulling too hard and break off the nozzle to the heater core, that would suck.