Coolant issue, need a little help please

[Shuie]

Car is an 89 S2. I recently purchased the car, and am still waiting for a Haynes manual to come in.

Here's the situation:

I had the car out last night and noticed that the fan was running too much and that the temp gauge was progressively moving up. The temp light actually came on just as I was getting home.

I let the car sit and started checking things out this morning. Here’s what I've found so far:

The coolant tank is empty and there is a puddle of coolant under the front of the car. There was a loose hose (I pulled it completely for the pic) going from the coolant tank to what looks like a throttle body (is this the water pump?) on the intake.




I can’t tell if that’s where it was leaking from or not. Some of the coolant has collected on a mounting bracket on the driver’s side of the intake manifold, and I cannot see how it got there or where it dripped from.



If not from the area above, the plastic brush guard under the car is concealing where the coolant is ultimately coming from at the moment. I’m going to get the car up in the air best I can, remove the brush gaurd, and get a better look within the next few days while I wait for a Haynes manual to come in.

I did a search on 'coolant leak' here and found a few posts warning about either the water pump failing, or oil cooler seals failing.

I checked the oil and don’t see any foam, so that should rule out the oil cooler seals, right? What are my chances that it’s something other than the water pump?

Timing belt was changed less than 3k miles ago (before I bought the car), so I would think that the water pump was replaced then based on what I’ve read here concerning routine maintenance.

Other than the Haynes, can anyone recommend any technical resource material to help out with routine maintenance?

I’m calling the mechanic tomorrow, but I thought Id check here first. I'm trying to avoid having to deliver the car to my mechanic on the back of a flatbed tow-truck for the 2nd time in the last month. The guy is damn good on his tools, but I hope to do as much of the money saving routine maintenance and problem solving as I can on this car.

Any help is appreciated.

[AFJuvat]

Ahhh water leaks.

Take a large board, and draw a circle on it, in that circle, write "bang head here". Give it a try a few times.

Now that you have prepared yourself mentally for that task at hand, lets continue.

You are definately dumping coolant somewhere.

Would suggest the following:

remove the belly pan, refill coolant, bleed system.

As the car is running, start looking for drips, looks like you have a pretty good leak in one of the hoses.

Fortunately, as long as the waterpump is intact (will be leaking from behind the timing belt cover on Passenger side), it is probably a loose or damaged hose.

Worst case, possible head gasket leak, but that would tend to cause drivability issues (meaning you would have other symptoms).

Do not assume the waterpump was replaced unless you have a receipt for it

Willing to bet you have a bad hose somewhere.

AFJuvat

[Shuie]

Thanks for the quick response.