Coolant leak...little hose?

[czwan]

Hi,

I noticed my MX-3 was starting to overheat. I see that on the front driver's side, there is some spattering out of coolant (to the lower right of the radiator, just near up under the bumper. There is a thin hose that I'm assuming is the problem--it looks kind of old and dried out. I haven't been able to get up under there and take a closer look. So, if you're facing the front of the car, there's a puddle of coolant on the driveway under the right headlight/driver's side.

*1 - For those of you that are familiar with this stuff, is this little hose likely the problem?

*2 - Is this a pretty simple repair? If all it takes is going to A-Zone to get a new hose, and then clamping it on, I'd rather do that than pay a mechanic. But unless it's pretty simple, I'm not so great with working on cars.

I imagine a lot of you are familiar with this (probably) common problem. If this is a simple fix, maybe you can even tell me the name of the part(s) I need to buy, and anything to watch out for. Thanks a lot for any advice.

[Bumpysbro]

hmm go to the online shop manual and go to the cooling section and look at the picture. the only two hoses at the front of the car on the driver side is the upper radiator hose and the coolant overflow hose.

[muttpower]

^^ yep...what he said
As far as replacing either hose, or any hose for that matter, it's a fairly straight forward procedure(not including the AC hoses) Would probably be a waste of $$$$ to pay a half a$$ed mechanic to do it, just to have them over tighten the hose clamps and ruin your new hoses...It's probably also a good idea to do a flush and refill while your at it, that is unless you've done it recently already...

[Thassodar]

This happened to me 3 months ago. It is the smaller tiny hose (or it was for me). Go to Autozone and tell them you need a anitfreeze coolant hose or something, tell them your car year, and they'll bust it out. Me and my buddy had to clip it a little bit, but we used the clamp that was already on the old hose and it worked perfectly. I can take a picture of the hose I'm talking about if you want.

It is EASY AS PIE. Don't need to take it to a shop, who knows what they'll tell you is wrong with it and charge you a arm and a leg. The hose was $4 I think.

[czwan]

Hey you guys, thanks a lot for the info. I agree about the mechanic trying to charge for all kinds of other stuff--I was really hoping to avoid that. I'm hoping to grab a hose from AZ tomorrow afternoon and maybe my dad will help me fix it. Glad to hear it's not a big deal (hopefully that's all that's wrong).

Thassodar--thanks a lot. If you do have a pic of the issue, that would be great.

[czwan]

I guess I was wrong about the problem being a hose. On the area where the leak is coming from, there aren't any hoses. Looks like I've cracked the plastic radiator....again. Already replaced it once (got one from a scrap yard).

It's way too easy to scrape the bottom of these cars on a parking block, incline, driveway, etc....

(The thing I was calling a hose was actually a thin metal pipe covered in black foam....doesn't go to the radiator).

[czwan]

OK.....lol at my updates....

It actually wasn't any of this stuff. It actually turned out to be a small hose (about 1/2" in diameter, maybe about 8" long) more toward the top of the engine, right under the spark plugs. Just happened to see some spurts of coolant coming from it. Have no idea what it is, but it was very easy to replace.

[Bumpysbro]

glad you got it fixed. i hate those small little problems, i remember filling my radiator back up with coolant and left a hose off and Bam! starts shooting out and its like CRAP! went all over the engine and just a mess.