Help with coolant crossover cap, and coolant leak!

[Immortal LuD]

Hey guys! Finished cleaning my IMRC's a few months back, and had quite a few leaky o-rings on the coolant crossover pipe, that lead to many coolant leaks and refills...

While I had the crossover tube out, I had to get the fill cap off with a torch, and had a nut welded on the top.

Over the next few days/weeks, I noticed that my coolant was slowly leaking onto the ground after the Cobra had sat after driving... I could NOT locate the source of the leak, and continued to keep an eye on the reservoir, as well as temps with an OBDII scanner. Everything was normal for a while...

After a week or so, I noticed that the coolant was slowly draining in the reservoir, and was lower when the car sat overnight, and of course was going back up to the fill line when running around. The leaking had stopped, and I believe the coolant is still leaking somewhere, but no visible traces are found. Lately the low coolant light has been coming on, and is concerning me.

I tried to loosen the fill plug, and ended up snapping the nut off, and now I am completely screwed... I will put up a few pics to give you an idea of what I'm working with, and would appreciate some input. The coolant level you see is after I had been running the car around town for quite a bit.

From what I understand, if I let the car sit for a few days, if I unscrew the reservoir to top off the coolant, it will cause more air to build up, is this true? I don't have any way of getting coolant into my system at this point, and know I can NOT get this fill cap off with the tools that I have...

FYI, 96 Mystic Cobra, 60K miles.

Thanks for any input!

 

[CzchMex]

Unless you have a cooling issue now the small amount of air bubbles you will get will not create a problem. Filling up the from the reservoir tube shouldn't cause more air bubbles if the level doesn't drop below the actual connecting tube to the radiator.

The crossover nut is very important to bleeding the system however. But you should be fine

 

[CJK440]

Unless you have a cooling issue now the small amount of air bubbles you will get will not create a problem. Filling up the from the reservoir tube shouldn't cause more air bubbles if the level doesn't drop below the actual connecting tube to the radiator.

The crossover nut is very important to bleeding the system however. But you should be fine

Agreed. Crossover nut is critical for purging air but once its capped, top off thru the res. The thing you don't want to do is open the resivoir while the crossover nut is off.

As for the crossover nut, find a shop with a mig welder, clean the top down to bare metal and have a new nut welded on properly.

As for where your coolan is going.... good luck.

 

[Bright Blue Cob]

Have you tried vice grips on the plug?

 

[Immortal LuD]

Have you tried vice grips on the plug?

Actually, I tried this before I tore out the crossover to get the thing off with a torch... So I'm not trying it anymore. Wish I could find a replacement crossover tube, these things are more rare than a unicorn that pisses rainbows, and shits skittles!

So yeah, last time I filled the coolant through the crossover "nut", I have not removed it since... So do you think after letting the car sit for a few days, it would be safe to pop open the reservoir and fill it up to see what happens?

 

[badblacklx]

What blind person welded it?