so i know the topic has been beat to death a million times, but recently i have noticed my coolant level going down and a slight sweet smell from my exhaust. these are common signs of bad or soon to be bad hg right?

also i replaced my clutch recently but have noticed i high pitched whining noise coming from my truck now(it almost sounds like a turbo). could my new clutch be bad?

i have a 91 v6 4x4

Sounds like a cooling passage to cylinder leak. You can confirm with a cooling system pressure test or you can have the coolant chemically tested (NAPA carries a test kit) to check for exhaust gas contamination in the coolant.

The sweet smell is ethylene glycol. If it in you exhaust you have a problem. Head gasket? Cracked head? for a humor sideline, Eastman Kodak used to make a product called Kodak Print Flattener. You take your black and white prints and soaked them in it and dried them and you got a softer pictures - ie. flattened prints. Except we a;so knew it as Dog Flattener. We had a problem call once because a customer had a tray of print flattener and he put it on the floor of his darkroom for some reason. Well his dog drank it. And that was it for the dog. Flattened.

Lesson here, do not leave your antifreeze within reach of pets. Ethylene glycol tastes good and kills them....

well i do hear the rushing of coolant behind my dash. im sure thats a bad sign also.

Yep, could be air in the cooling system, possibly from being low, but could also be exhaust gas bubbles in there rushing through the heater core. That was usually the first sign of a bad HG in my '85.

well i will go buy the test kit for the exhaust and see what i get. i filled up the coolant and it only seems to make the sound behind the dash when its cold.

Sounds like the headgasket to me. Take off your engine oil fill cap - does it look like a milkshake?

i did and it looks normal. no weird milkshake stuff

No, the fill cap can often look like a milkshake, even when nothing is wrong. Condensation builds up there quite often.

Check your dipstick..

But, if you smell it in your exhaust,then it probably just broke between your coolant passage, and the cylinder.

Fill up the radiator, start up the truck, with the radiator cap off. If you see a consistant flow of bubbles,then,HG is gone. But, you already smell it in your exhaust..sooo.. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/scared.gif" alt="" />


-Dano-
<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

well i did take the cap off and filled it up then ran the heater to burp out the bubbles. after at least 10 minutes the level never changed. i was expecting it to drop then rise again but it didnt do that