Hey every body I have an 02, 1500 ram 4by sport edition v8 5.9l I have about 121k on it
it. Im starting to have minor problems with it that I'm sure some elbow grease will fix. I have plans to drain flush and refill my radiator, but when I went to inspect it first I noticed
I have a small leak coming from the upper radiator house where it connects to the engine
just behind the alternator. I know it's leaking there cause I saw a small amount of coolant puddled around it I assume there would be more if it wasnt being burnt off by the heat of
The engine. Im a new Diy and my knowlege is low at best, do my question is this.
Is it a bad o ring or something of that nature that is causing the leak ?
If it does not sound like an o ring failure what would be your best guess as to to what would be causing the leak?

Oo and I forgot to mention I inspected the house without removal and from what I can see
The hose does not have any cracks or tears in it, and I would like to refrain from using stop leak and just fix the problem before it gets worse. Thank you for your help

 

Would be a good time to change all the hoses. Hoses tend to start leaking from the inside, a popular thing to do was cut a length off the end it was leaking from and reconnect. The problem with this is that a hose will start leaking on the inside and the water will follow the path of least resistance and leak, mainly from the ends. So many who cut the end off and reconnected found that they still had the leak.

 

Seems easy enough and makes sense that there could be damage on the inside that isnt showing on the out side thanks bigdaddyII

 

Prolly wouldn't hurt to go ahead and install a new stat in while you've got the coolant drained, etc...depending on how old your current one is.

 

+1 on new hoses and t-stat. I replaced all that stuff a couple months ago, and the radiator the other week, it was all still original LOL. When I replaced the hoses I bought the standard hose clamps instead of using the old spring hose clamps.

 

Update: drained, cleaned/flushed the system. Turns out it was an issue of a gasket gone bad by the t-stat replaced upper radiator hose to just in case no more leaks. Thanks for the input guys

 

Glad you were able to get it worked out. I hadnt thought about your thermostat being on top, it connects to the bottom hose on my 4.7.