Afraid of the answer.....

[robdelorenzo]

Ok. I think I got it. Will go unplug it and put it into a container and start engine and see what happens.

[robdelorenzo]

I am in over my head at this point.

From what I can tell that overflow drain line comes right out of the coolant tank.
The hose that the quick disconnect blew out on comes from the top of the oil cooler and goes into the tank. I don't know where the other hose from the tank that goes from the inside of the firewall goes to. (I don't have a Bentley and can't find a decent diagram online) And I can't get my hands in there, which is why I had the mechanic install that tank in the first place!

I tried plugging up the overflow hose to make sure that nothing else is leaking.
Nothing else is.
It's only coming from that overflow hose as seen in the photo: (not my actual photo, but the exact same thing)



The leaking apparently has nothing to do with temperature. It starts as soon as I start the car. It only gets worse as the engine heats up.

If this hose does indeed go straight from the coolant tank, how is this possible?

I don't see any lowering of the level in the coolant tank as it's happening or any movement of the fluid. Granted it's a small amount of leakage, but it has to be coming from somewhere, right? Is that tank under any pressure when the car is first started?

I'm ready to call the junk man again I am so frustrated.

I may end up doing that anyway, as I don't know if I'm well on my way down that slippery slope to a money pit.

I'm also no mechanic. I can understand principles and do basic stuff, but I have zero clue what's going on here.

Does anyone have any ideas what's going on or been through this before?

Thanks!

[911monty]

Actually this may be a good thing and I was half expecting this to happen.Remember the comment about the hose from the oil cooler? If the leak had been from the tank it would have meant replacing the tank. This would have cost several hundred dollars. I suspect that somehow the hose which blew apart may be connected to the wrong hose, possibly the drain hose. This might only require switching some hoses. Yes I know the hoses are different diameters and this should be unlikely but at this point anything is suspect and needs to be checked and confirmed.
You may have to do some feeling by hand or use a scope camera to confirm.
There are 3 hoses from the manifold to the tank. The hose in your pic on the left should attach to the top nipple of the manifold. This is the smallest diameter hose. This is the connection from the top of the oil cooler that the fitting broke on and should go to the purge valve. Of course the bottom hose on the manifold should be the drain hose.
Please follow the hose from the oil cooler, thru the broken fitting and to the top connection of the manifold.
It is probably easiest to determine that the drain hose goes to the bottom fitting. I believe you can see this from below.

I see JFP beat me to it while I was typing. Thanks!

[911monty]

Here is a picture of the manifold from inside the engine compartment.

The small diameter hose at the top is the oil cooler connection. The middle I believe is the vent from the radiators (not sure since I've never followed it). The lower that you can see just below the bend in the metal piping from the middle hose is the drain hose. Hope this helps.




And yes a pressure test would of course been the proper thing to do, but hell you've still got a full day and may resolve this yet!

[robdelorenzo]

I like this theory a lot and it's inexpensive!

I'm done for tonight, though.

Will be checking this board but not going to try any more work until tomorrow.

Thanks guys.

[911monty]

FYI The way I captured that image of the manifold was by using a camera held down behind the AOS, I think I had to move the shift cables out of the way until I found the correct angle.

[robdelorenzo]

The other thing I am going to try is disconnecting the quick release on the hose coming from the top of the oil cooler and then starting the car.

I'm going to need to flush and change the coolant anyway at this point.

This theory makes a lot of sense because somehow the overflow hose is being fed a steady stream of coolant.

I wonder what the flow rate from that hose from the oil cooler should be?

Also I'm going to see about procuring a pressure tester.

Inspector Clouseau will resume his work tomorrow.