Coolant leak
 

Wife took car to work on saturday, and noticed it had dropped coolant on floor. I had a look on sunday suspecting the rad was caput but found a tiny hole in the top rad hose. When I brought the car home on saturday the fan was sparaying up water underneath the hole in the pipe and didn't leave water on the floor.

I have just changed the coolant pipe and run the car and doesn't appear to be leaking but there is steam/ smoke coming from the engine that smells of coolant which I guess is water being dried of (and engine degreaser) but now the engine warning light is on and the temp gauge is reading higher than normal.

Any ideas :wonder:

I'm assuming you have drained, then refilled coolant? How much was it down by, when you replaced the top-hose and for how long?

You are probably correct in that what you are now seeing is steam from the original leak, especially if you have wrapped headers. However, do check the OTHER pipe too, as it may be on it's way out too.

When you refilled with coolant, did you follow the advice/procedure on here? You may have airlocked it if not. Then the only way out is to drain/refill to be sure of getting it right. As an example, my classic took nearly 20 minutes to refill when I changed the rad.

I haven't drained and refilled no. I also didn't realise (from reading another thread) to fill from the rad cap and not the header tank.

I had a feeling I may have created an air lock but would this cause the engine management light to come on?

The water level wasn't down by much in the header, it was on minimum mark. When i took the rad pipe off no coolant came out from the rad end but it did from the other end.

I'd be inclined to refill, VERY SLOWLY at the header tank with a decent 50% mix of antifreeze, but DON'T mix the types. If you don't know what's in now, drain, flush and refill.

Then start and run the engine up to temperature with the cap off, watching for bubbles, refilling and mopping up as required.
Finally, replace the cap and drive round the block.
Allow to cool and check levels.

However, IF you ran it with insufficient coolant, you may have done damage to the head gaskets:(

So if it continues, get a sniff test done by a reptable garage.

what year is the car? on the early classics you can flash out the fault code to see what fault the ECU has stored, i'm not sure you can do it on the newer cars?

It is 03 early blobeye. Car in for full service monday so just slowly topped up from radiator cap squeezing the rad hoses to get air out and then topped up header as the car running watching for bubbles. Levels and temperature seem fine now. I did run the car down the road about a mile and half before and turned round and went home when the temp gauge started going up but coasted home and temp started dropping.

first run down the road after getting the air out and steam coming from right hand side of engine bay. Another three trips around the block and all is ok but it still smells of engine coolant?
How do I clear the engine warning light?

Car came back from full service yesterday (local garage with subaru mechanic that comes in two days a week) and was told the engine light is on because of lambda sensor. I told the mechanic about the circumstances of the warning light coming on and was told it may have cooked the sensor, but their diagnostic equipment wasn't detailed enough to give me a precise diagnosis.
So, anyone more knowledgable than me know if this is probable, I pressume it would be the pre cat oxygen sensor at fault, and would it clear the engine management light by itself or would it need to go back to subaru to be reset.