hey guiys thanks to everyone who helped me with my previous thread on which truck to get. I picked up a 97 Dodge 1500 SLT Laramie 4x4 last night with 121000 and a lot of nice features done to it. I drove it back 3 hours home and it ram smooth. I notice now that there is coolant dripping in between the tranny bell housing and the rear of the motor. My first instinct was a blown headgasket but the oil dipstick looks fine(no water, normal color) so now im wondering if theres a leak and its dripping and running in the bell housing or if its a freeze plug on the back of the motor. Any ideas what to do or where to start, and should i drive it at all or no. thanks and ill post pics of my truck later today, thanks

 

Yup, the freeze plugs are leaking. Remove the tranny and fix it, or use some stop leak and prolong the inevitable.

 

congrats on the new truck.

the most correct (and expensive) solution is to drop the trans and replace the freeze plugs.

but - i'd put some stop leak in it. everyone blasts me about this, but when the stop leak is in solution it doesn't hurt anything. whenever and wherever it oozes out, it'll form a hard crust. it doesn't really stop up radiators and heater cores like everyone believes it will. if it did, there wouldn't be any satisfied customers.

 

I do use stop leak to sometimes buy me a few weeks or months. The only problem I ever had with it is a clogged heater core, but I believe there was already a lot of crap in there before.

I say before you pull the tranny and do frost plugs, let it sit idle a bit, and check if the leak still comes from the same area. I say this because I was gonna pull my tranny and noticed that it was the rad bottom hose leaking, but driving made it travel all the way to the back of the block and it looked like it leaked from the motor-tranny joint.

 

I had the same issue, and after taking off my flexplate cover and looking around a bit more, I found my block heater was leaking and the antfreeze was runnning down my oil pan and then off my bellhousing.

 

Yep, freeze plugs, mine has a leak too.

My current course of action, been leaking since Dec/Jan...

Hopefully I'll get to it this spring.

 

OR it could be the back portion of the intake gasket?

 

Stop leak (specifically Bars) is NASTY stuff. Put that crap in your vehicle if you'd like, but I won't touch it with a 10 foot pole.

I put a single bottle in my Camaro last fall in an attempt to seal up the heater core. It didn't work (not that I expected it to) so I replaced the heater core, but I didn't flush the cooler.

I drove it for another 1,000 miles until I parked it for the winter. After two months of sitting I pulled the engine, and EVERYTHING was coated in that crap. The water pump, hoses, thermostat, coolant passages, etc. were gunked up with that crap. I'll get pictures if you'd like. Needless to say if you actually care about your vehicle don't let that stuff near your cooling system.

 

so you think its ok to drive it when its doing this? im eager to drive it but i dont want to make anything worse

 

its critical that you keep the cooling system full and the temperature at normal, around 195*. as long as you do this, you can drive it some. you can safely add water to the overflow tank and it will usually suck it in as needed when cool.

if it overheats ANY, STOP.

also just in case you might not know, never open the radiator when hot without a very large, thick towel as a potholder. SCALDING HOT water under VERY HIGH PRESSURE can spew out and burn the total f.... out of you and anyone nearby. be safe.