1996 dodge ram 5.2 318 manual

Recently did the water pump gasket due to coolant leak, thought I got it and we had some bad weather (hard to see coolant on the ground with all the rain)

Anyways... noticed a bunch of coolant on the driveway and after a bit of Google mechanics figured I'd replace the coolant bypass since it kind of seems like the area its in. My question is what should I do while I'm in there replace anything else ?





The screw driver shows where my drip ends up before it drips on the ground (not very helpful I know)



The screwdriver here shows where I've traced it up to and can't really see any higher but the motors dirty and hard to tell.

 

Did you replace the water pump, or just the gasket?

 

Just the gasket, I figured it was fine I've never had any sign of over heating just leaking

 

Clean everything off REALLY well. Drive it for a day or three, then re-inspect. Should be able to trace it back to the source.

 

Copy that !

 

You can rent a pressure tester and pump the system to the max psi, stamped on radiator cap. That will allow you to troubleshoot without dealing with heat and moving parts of a running engine. You can also add UV dye to coolant and get a cheap UV light from Walmart. Come to think of it, coolant fluoresces all on it's own under UV light. At least the green stuff does.

 

Me? If I had it mostly or all apart to clean/dry the area, I would put a new water pump on too. Then see what happens.

 

I'm fighting the same kind of leak that neither I, nor my mechanic friends, can find. And it only began AFTER a brand new Napa pump, gasket, t=chain, t-stat, etc. job last summer. I think its coming out of the body of the pump as it originates from nothing. But mine is clean as a whistle so its really hard to see where it comes from.

 

​​​​​​Think its needed to change something I'm not having issues with ?

 

Yeah its getting frustrating haha