Our 92 Dodge Dakota v6 3.9 has a coolant leak that we can not figure out...it's the front and pools by the passenger side...when we turn it off it's steams like a locamotive. My husband has replaced the water pump and the thermostat with new seals and it is still leaking somewhere..he said the top hose was still cold after the test drive..also the truck hasn't over heated any....any help would be much appreciated..thank you in advance..

 

Check the heater hose with the metal pipe going into the right side of the water pump. There is an o-ring that goes there and if the o-ring goes bad then there will be a nasty leak. That's just from my experience which I learned the hard way when I forgot to install the o-ring

 

Our new water pump didn't have a o- ring it was a screw in Port.

 

Is there a bypass hose between the water pump, and the intake manifold? If it uses the same style timing cover as the magnums (not sure when the 3.9 went to the magnum design....), it may be leaking between the timing cover, and the block.

 

It says magnum on the top the air breather cover..is that hard to fix?

 

Change the cover?

Won't solve your issue though. The little hose is buried under the alternator\a/c bracket. need to move it all out of the way, just to see it.

If the timing cover is leaking...... its the water pump job, plus six more bolts..... (and the balancer on the crank...) Not too bad of a job, if you have a warm place to work......

 

Yea I'd say maybe the WP bolts are misplaced. One or more of the bolts goes through the water jacket. You do not need to disconnect the AC hoses you can unbolt the mounts and flip it over to the side with the hoses still connected. If the top hose does not get hot the motor is not heating up or the thermostat is no good or maybe in upside down.