My 98 durango is gushing out antifreeze from between the trans bellhousing and the motor.. I looked as well as i could with out removing anything and it doesnt seem to be leaking from somewhere and leakign in to the bellhousing. so whats this sound like? Freeze out plugs? head gasket?( i don thtink its the head gasket because it runs fine, doesnt smoke, and the old isnt milky looking. I am going to most likly pull the trans to get a good look but if you think i should try somethign else let me know.. it is leaking almost as fast as i pour it in..
thanks[/align]Also if it is the freeze out plug behind the trans i have to take the tranny of course.. but do i just put a self tappin screw in it and yank it out with a slide hammer? then beat the new one in with a dead shot and a woden dowl???[/align]thanks for the help..[/align]

 

I would say it does sound like a freeze plug...but before you just pull the bad plug out and put a new one in...see what caused this to happen...unless you live in Antartica....it shouldn't be cold enough to pop a freeze plug and everything happens for a reason...just hate to see you go thru the trouble of dropping the tranny and then have this happen again in a few days. Everyone else feel free to jump in if you have seen this happen before and what the reasons could be...

 

I bought the truck used about 4 months ago and i didnt notice till after a month of driving that it would drip antifreze from there maby 1 drip every 20 min or so and i didnt think it was a major issue because it was dripping so slow.. but now that it literly pours out as fast as i pour it in i have to fix it.. i think i have to pull the tranny to see the plug if im goping to try to see why it happened though right? but one guy i know said that the plugs are steel so they rust and start to leak.. makes sense.. the durango does have 180k miles on it too. with a bad u joint or SOMETHING(grr another problem) in the front that has a vibration to it adding to the possible cause of the leaking plug..

 

A bad freeze plug could be the issue as they do go bad (and they aren't to keep the block from cracking if the coolant somehow becomes frozen, it would happen with or without freeze plugs). Anyway I think I saw another thread about somebody having a leak out of the same area a while back you may want to take the time to do a few searches and see if you can find the post, I think he might have even taken pics as well.

 

it does sound like a freeze plug to me as well... usually they rot from the inside out and I believe it's due to lack of cooling system maint. flush the motor with waterwhen your done and get as much gunk out of there as you can, then use a coolant flush additive and do it again. once your done and ready to re-fill the system, use distilled water. prevents sludge from forming inside the cooling system.

 

So i pulled the transmission and found the problem. Does anyone see a problem here?
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/...mgid=279745449
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/...mgid=279745470
I cleaned the crud off and took these so you could see it better..
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/...mgid=279745461
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/...mgid=279745457
Here is the hole with out the plug in it. there was all sorts of crud inside the next pict is a pict of all the crud
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/...mgid=279746720
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/...mgid=279745866
The last 2 picts are a reminder to drain the block BEFOR poping the freeze plugs.. the one with the hole obviously didnt have any coolant in it but the other one... yea a green bath was my lesson.
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/...mgid=279746731
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/...mgid=279746745

 

glad to see you found the problem

 

I hope you swapped them both... that would suck if the other was about ready to go...

 

Naaa i didnt replace them both... LOL I replaced all 10 of them. thats 8 in the block and 2 in the head.

 

Ya.

Now hope the thing seals. (knock on wood)