Coolant behind harmonic balancer

[jtrakel]

Evening first time poster! I've been lurking this forum for a bit now with the anticipation of purchasing a new to me 2001 with 160,xxx, new to the 5.9 but have owned two 6.7's in the past. Today while looking under the rig it appears to be coolant behind the harmonic balancer. I went for the water pump and thermostat housing first but no joy on any coolant leakage. Besides the radiator hoses where else should I look for a possible leak OR what could fluid being in that spot indicate? Also of note after a short drive I crawled under and saw some drops on the steering linkage and some drips on the concrete.

 

The seller recently worked on the oil pan gasket and needless to say I have an OEM gasket on the way right now as it looks like a 2 year old smothered RTV everywhere. Truck runs strong but has a lot of random quirks and boxes (BD TQloc and a very old school looking exhaust brake and another box I'll have to post a photo of for identification help). I'll be removing all of these "mysterious" components so I can start fresh with the W-T ground mod/PCM and ECM grounding. I also  noticed a ton of oil everywhere in the engine bay and my research pointed to the crank case puke bottle so I'll be doing Mopar1872Man mod this week

 

Ideally my goal is to get the rig back to stock(ish) electrically and do all the supporting mods to clean up and AC noise issues and move on from there. Thanks for reading my novel, cheers!

[Dieselfuture]

Welcome to this magical place,

If it's not your thermostat housing or thermostat dripping which is unlikely, I'd take a wild guess and say head gasket behind alternator, common place for it. Hope I'm wrong, good luck, sounds like you're going in the right direction. 

[Royal Squire]

I thought I had head gasket leaking but turned out to be water pump. Rent a cooling system pressure reset and pressure up cooling system and should be easy to find. 

[jtrakel]

5 minutes ago, Royal Squire said:

I thought I had head gasket leaking but turned out to be water pump. Rent a cooling system pressure reset and pressure up cooling system and should be easy to find. 

 

Thanks I plan to go down this route tomorrow, hopefully it's not a head gasket I have enough issues to address with this truck already #1 on the list is water leaking in on the drivers side doors!

[Blueox01]

Water pump, would be my first look at.

[Tractorman]

Your most accurate and fastest way to find the coolant leak is to get a pressure tester as @Royal Squire has already mentioned.  Do the test on a cold engine. 

 

As far as engine oil leaks, I wouldn't start replacing anything right away.  It is very easy to start replacing things that don't need to be replaced because the source of oil leak or leaks can be difficult to find.  I would use lots of brake cleaner and spend some time thoroughly cleaning any oily areas - then start watching for the source of the oil leak,  and there are many sources..  Two common oil leak sources are the crankcase vent and the seal on the vacuum pump.  Both leaks can get very messy with the assistance of the engine fan.  Some other sources are the oil feed hose to the vacuum pump, oil pressure sending unit, tappet cover gasket, valve cover gasket, head gasket, turbo oil feed hose, timing gear case gasket, oil pan gasket, etc.

 

- John

[jtrakel]

I conducted a pressure test and noticed some fluid coming out of what appears to be weep hole on the right side of the water pump. I should have a new one showing up this afternoon which I'm hopeful will fix my issue.

[Royal Squire]

When I had coolant leak the fan was blowing coolant everywhere and until I pressure tested I was really worried it was head gasket.