Went outside today to discover a about a sandwich size puddle of red fluid on my driveway, looked around underneath and at first it looked like it was coming from the power steering hoses but upon closer inspection I noticed the welds on the driver side of the radiator had some calcification if you could call it that. Right where the plastic meets the aluminum and it was moist looks like it just started to leak.......

also its weird but the puddle of fluid by this afternoon looks like strawberry milkshake!! Now I'm thinking maybe the trans. fluid has been contaminated with coolant, I hope not??

Any suggestions or is it normal for HOAT type coolant to look foamy after its exposed to air for a while??

Will I be able to tell if the coolant is contaminated with ATF+4 just by looking at it?? or maybe smelling it???

T.I.A.

I checked my Trans. fluid yesterday and it was fine nice and red.

Oh and its a 2005 1500 5.7L 4x2

 

You could always try licking it. Just kidding. Its not uncommon for our cheap radiators to leak. I wouldn't think you could get a mixture of tranny fluid in the radiator. There should be a seperate tranny cooler. At least that's how the 03 and 04's are. I'd start by double checking the claps on the radiator hoses. The factory clamps also suck. Also feel for soft spots on the hoses. That'd be a sign of a hose going bad. If that's good I'd try running the truck up and see if the radiator or hoses are leaking. Happy hunting.