I noticed a pretty good puddle of yellowish burnt stuff behind and under my alternator and AC, and I have slowly been losing coolant. not very much at a time though. I replaced the valve cover gaskets a while ago and havnt didnt notice this then. I tried to get a good angle on the picture to see it between the intake and alternator. Bad hose/gasket? Its a 2001 ram 1500 with 160k miles.

Attachment 17936

 

Looks more like sludge from a leaking headgasket. Losing oil too? It looks like your timing cover gasket is leaking, oil and coolant.

 

That would be a massive head gasket leak for that much of a puddle of burnt crap to accumulate like that, it runs and idles good so I'm not sure about the head leaking but I don't know, thats why I'm here. it doesn't lose too much oil. Maybe 1/2 qt in 3000 miles.

 

I didn't say you had a headgasket leak, I said it's what the oil or coolant looks like because of one. I am leaning towards a timing cover leak.

 

Oh OK sorry for the confusion, misinterpreted. Well that sounds fun... can this be done in one day?

 

Environment, tools, and know-how providing, yeah.

Mine is doing something similar, only just coolant though.
About in the same spot too.


I was quoted $362 by a shop to do mine, that's with a $100 timing set too. Which I would do if I were you. You'd already have the timing cover off.

 

362 isn't bad but I would rather do it myself. I have a good environment (considering its 30 deg out) and a good set of tools, but ive never done a timing chain/cover before. So you think its a burnt mixture of coolant and oil? I haven't seen it leak from the underside, just on top there

 

You might just have a much simpler (than the timing cover gasket replacement) thermostat housing, temperature sender, or heater hose leak. It's hard to spot leaks under the accessory bracket without taking at least the AC compressor out of the way. Another possibility is a leaking bypass hose which is practically impossible to get a good look at without removing the accessory bracket.

Been there, done that... if it were mine, I'd start tearing into it, starting with the AC compressor and continuing if need be to get the entire accessory bracket out. At some point you ought to be able to see what's gone wrong, and won't have yet spent a nickel on parts when you do.

 

Thanks for the replies. I am hoping for something similar also, I will try to get a better look at it tommorow in the garage and see if I can get a better idea of where it could be coming from.