i have 2003 3500 5.9 diesel can smell coolant in cab when im in stop and go traffic when im on highway cant smell anything trying to find out where its comming from the only thing i noticed was on the passenger side of the engine compartment the little tube comming out of the firewall i see coolant comes out of there but not when parked and running everything else seems to be good.....Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

its probably your heater core leaking

 

Heater core, or your hose. Hose would be the cheapest to rule out. Cooling system maintenance is extremely important on diesel engines, especially when running green coolant. Every Spring and Fall, get some coolant test strips and check the PH, freeze point, and additive level. They'll tell you if you need to charge the coolant w/ additive, flush the entire system, or the coolant system needs no maintenance.

 

I got the same thing goin wrong with my 03. Im thinking instead of taking 6 hrs to remove the whole dash and steering column to get the evap box out just to be able to slide out the heater core from the back side, what if a guy were to cut a hole in the fire wall the correct shape to simply slide the bad core out and the new core in from the engine compartment. I know its way up under there but I think it could be done. I got a roto zip with a small cutoff wheel and a little ambition. I'll let ya know if I do it this weekend.

 

im wandering if anything will happen if i leave it like that for few weeks i live in arizona and work in vegas and im driving it mon thru friday i put about 1000 miles a week on it and cant have it break down on me

 

Can bypass the heater core. Just re-route the hoses back to each other. Won't have no heat, but at least you won't be loosing coolant and risk having it leak worse, and flood the cab.

 

Wild bill is right, just run the hose from the head directly to the tube coming up from below. You can leave the shorter hose just sit there unhooked. I ran mine like that all last summer and the truck has sat all winter till now when I need it, so now Ill have to find time to fix it. Also if you don't see any coolant dripping on your carpet the leak could be just a bad connection at the firewall. before you re-rout the heater hose you may want to drain a little coolant out the radiator from the petcock on the bottom driver side to allow the coolant level to drop below the head.

I checked out the possibility of cutting a hole in the firewall to remove the core but I think the exhaust manifold would slightly be in the way, a guy might be able to drop that side of the motor down and get it but I think ill just take the time out of a day to do it right. I need to check out what the back side of the gage cluster looks like anyways.

 

im going to try just bypassing the heater core because it is just little coolant leaking from that tube
thanks

---AutoMerged DoublePost---

and by the way the dash comes apart kinda easy

 

probably the a coolent leak, but also i have noticed mine has a pool of water coming from the same area when i shut it down, i have chalked it up to be the AC condenser. might help

 

Did you end up changing the core?