Leaking coolent again.

Some of you guys might remember where I was leaking coolent around the front of the engine and thought it was the water pump. It ended up being the lower rad hose to water pump connection.

Well its doing it again, I've been under there a couple times and it just doesn't look like its coming from the water pump, its just wet at the connection from hose to water pump and running back along the hose and dripping off at its lowest point. Its a brand new hose and it does have the spring it in. There was a bunch of crystilzed coolent sludge in between the hose and the metal tube its clamped onto and we cleaned that off but I'm thinking maybe we didn't clean it on the bottom as well as we should have before putting the new hose on? Its definatly clamped on plenty tight.

I was thinking of taking it off again and clean it all the way around with a smaller wire brush so maybe it can reach places the large one didn't and then putting a thin coating of RTV around the pipe and then clamping it back on with a high pressure hose clamp.

How does that sound? Any other ideas?

One more thing a friend mentioned is maybe my pressure bottle cap isn't venting excess pressure and that this joint thats leaking is the weakest point in my system?

Thanks for any help.

Well, normally what I do is put a band of Indian Head Gasket cement around the first 2 inches of the hose, slide it on then using a 1/4 Inch DRIVE tighten it up. Then start it up, warm it up, shut it off and allow the indian head to cure for a couple of hours. Had that problem on my 2.8 S-10, got it fixed and about a month later the seal/packing went and it started leaking out of the weep hole, can't win...impersonated a bad hose pretty well so if you do the above and it still leaks then I'd look at the weep hole in the nose of the pump. Make sure you get that hose up high. I've seen a few pourus castings in my time...

Thanks for the tips I'll try that, I'm almost positive that it will start leaking out the weep hole shortly after too cause thats just my luck with this particular problem.

Well it turns out it is the water pump, I finally caught it when it was really pouring out and could put my hand way up under the pully and it was wet up inside there so that confirmed it. I guess every other time the coolent had evaporated off the spout and only left the hose and where it crimps on wet.

Guess I'll be doing that ASAP.