Coolant leaking

Miata's off the road this week... :cry:

Last night, drove to Kroger for some bread, thought something didn't feel right. At Kroger, took a quick look round to see a puddle of coolant coming from under the car... It stopped dripping pretty quickly, and hasn't leaked in the garage, but I still don't want to drive the car with coolant leaking.

It seems to be coming from the rear of the engine, and the CAS seal is leaking, so I'm adding two and two and getting the heater hose. So a new set of hoses (may as well replace the lot, bottom radiator hose is pretty old) is going to be on order. Bye bye $75.

What's even better is I put the car up on ramps and dropped the splash guard, to find that the steering gear, the bottom of the oil sump, and the AC pump are all covered in oil. aaarrgghh One of the wire loops fastening the gaiter onto the steering is broken... All must have happened recently, wasn't bad the last time. Would the loss of the wire loop mean the steering gear could be leaking - or am I going to have to strip the front of the engine down to find leaking oil seals?

I was to have had new tires, had wifely agreement and everything. Instead, looks like I'll be buying parts again...

(This car does seem to need lots and lots of replacement parts, and constant attention. Not good.) :-(

Sorry to hear about the car trouble. I recently developed a crack in my radiator and had to replace it.

I've got a used all metal, replacement radiator that I can sell cheap if you need it. Let me know.

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Originally Posted by Kiliwizz

(This car does seem to need lots and lots of replacement parts, and constant attention. Not good.) :-(

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Yea! Who knew the hoses wouldn't last for the life of the car! :roll:

Next think you know it's going to want a belt! :jocolor:

BTW. The wire from my understanding only hold the boots on, the primary purpose of the boot is to keep dirt out of the steering rack, I don't believe there is any fluid in that area of the rack.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by POS Racing

BTW. The wire from my understanding only hold the boots on, the primary purpose of the boot is to keep dirt out of the steering rack, I don't believe there is any fluid in that area of the rack.

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POS is right. The wire is only there to keep the boot tight, which keeps contaminants out of the rack's grease. You can use a zip-tie to reseal the boot - that's what I did when I replaced my inner tie rods (I hate old, brittle wire ties).

Cool, cheers guys. I'll probably pull the boot back, clean it out and re-pack it with grease, just to be safe.

Yeah, I know, stuff wears out - and I guess when you buy a 120k mile car, a lot of stuff is about to wear out. C'est la vie.

Do you need to find the engine drain plug to replace the heater hoses, or will the radiator drain do? The haynes manual picture is a bit like the "can you guess what this is" photographs they used to put in newspapers. An anonymous-looking bit of metal with a bolt sticking out of it...:?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kiliwizz

will the radiator drain do?

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Yes.