Hello all, I have a bit of a problem. My car, a 2003 Mazda Protege ES with a 2.0L engine, started overheating. The first thing I did was throw on the heater to try to bleed some of the heat off the engine, however, little to no heat came out of the vents. Since I was about about 1/2 block from my house I got it home let it cool down and checked the radiator. I noticed the radiator was low on coolant/water.
As I filled the radiator with distilled water, I thought to myself I've almost put 5/8th of a gallon in and its still not full. So I looked under the car to see if it was leaking out somewhere and low and behold it was. Now this is the confusing part, the coolant/water is dripping from the cross member that goes directly under my engine. So I figured that it must be dripping from above and running down some how, naturally I start looking at hoses feeling for any wetness, I found nothing. At this point I have inspected my radiator, all hoses connecting to/from the radiator, the heater hoses, freeze plugs, thermostat housing, the cooling hose for my intake manifold, checked my oil to make sure no water was in it, checked my trans fluid to make sure no water was in it, and I have come up with nothing. The car is still overheating and still leaking, the radiator will go from full to about 7/8ths quickly, then will slowly drain down till it takes about 3/4 of a gallon to fill back up.
Since I was trying to do this alone and at night, I called a friend over the next night we jacked the car up, got under it and tried to pinpoint the leak once again. The only thing we were able to determine is the water is leaking from about the center of the engine slightly closer to the driver's side through a hole that is about a fingertip deep and runs from the front of the car towards the back. Since my water pump is on the passenger side of the vehicle and impossible to get to could Mazda have put a drainage system into the car? I am wondering if anyone that knows if there is some sort of drain that runs from the timing belt cover/housing to the bottom of the engine to drain out or any other ideas where to look.
Thank you in advance.
As I filled the radiator with distilled water, I thought to myself I've almost put 5/8th of a gallon in and its still not full. So I looked under the car to see if it was leaking out somewhere and low and behold it was. Now this is the confusing part, the coolant/water is dripping from the cross member that goes directly under my engine. So I figured that it must be dripping from above and running down some how, naturally I start looking at hoses feeling for any wetness, I found nothing. At this point I have inspected my radiator, all hoses connecting to/from the radiator, the heater hoses, freeze plugs, thermostat housing, the cooling hose for my intake manifold, checked my oil to make sure no water was in it, checked my trans fluid to make sure no water was in it, and I have come up with nothing. The car is still overheating and still leaking, the radiator will go from full to about 7/8ths quickly, then will slowly drain down till it takes about 3/4 of a gallon to fill back up.
Since I was trying to do this alone and at night, I called a friend over the next night we jacked the car up, got under it and tried to pinpoint the leak once again. The only thing we were able to determine is the water is leaking from about the center of the engine slightly closer to the driver's side through a hole that is about a fingertip deep and runs from the front of the car towards the back. Since my water pump is on the passenger side of the vehicle and impossible to get to could Mazda have put a drainage system into the car? I am wondering if anyone that knows if there is some sort of drain that runs from the timing belt cover/housing to the bottom of the engine to drain out or any other ideas where to look.
Thank you in advance.
