Sudden coolant loss; 2002 Tahoe 5.3L

[whyhelloofficer]

Numb skull (me), replaced the water pump and all is well now. Took the car up on the lift in the shop and the underside of the water pump was discolored from coolant leaking out previously. Please learn from the mistakes of my untrained eyes!

Had a similar experience -- Kept getting a low coolant message and noticing that the overflow would need to be topped off every week or so. Could not find any obvious leaks around hoses or the engine, and the overflow itself was dry.

Last attempt was replacing the water pump, and it turned out that the gaskets had finally worn out. Went ahead and replaced everything because it was original with 200k+ miles.

 

[Doubeleive]

thats weird, unless they changed them sometime between years, mine connects to 2 at the front and 2 at the back of the heads and mine only leak when running duh! Maybe next time you go out let it cool enough and go back recheck, the mistery continues!

there is the option to delete the crossover pipe with a cap that does not have the pipe hole, maybe a previous owner or a shop changed it in the past, when you buy the kit from dorman which is the only one who makes them any more it comes with both, pipe and cap set. Otherwise you can also just buy the o-rings if you have a leak. I have a set of the delete caps in my toolbox

 

[BLK_Z71]

My 03 Tahoe had the same annoying small leak behind the intake. Turns out it was one of the steam pipe caps, the o ring had dried out.