Water sound behind dash. Coolant leak

Hi everyone. I'm new to the forum and looking for some help. If I park my truck for a couple days, I hear a water sound behind the dash sloshing around when I take off. It goes away as if the water spilled somewhere. I do not have a wet floorboard on either driver or passenger side. I popped the hood and notice some red coolant spayed out a little over the radiator hose and it seems to be leaking out or had sprayed out across the top of the radiator. It also looks like I'm low on coolant.

Can you tell me which coolant to get so I can put some in for the meantime. I plan to pop the hood again later and I can take some pictures. I'd like to avoid going to a mechanic if possible.

Any input would be much appreciated.

Thanks

 

Welcome Chris,

With the vehicle not completely up to temperature can you remove the radiator cap and rev the engine. The goal is to see if there are any bubbles being released into the coolant from an engine leak.

Sounds to me like pressure build up in the cooling system is causing you to run low on coolant, thus the sloshing. Check out Step 3:

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/head-gasket-blown-test

Glad to hear there is no leak in the cabin as those are a huge pain.

 

Done. Looks low on coolant. Shouldn’t it it full of coolant under the cap? No bubbles.

 

Fill it up to the top and with the cap off start the engine and make sure it doesn't spray out//start overflowing from pressure inside the system. You won't see anything until the fluid is above the fins.

probably have a cracked radiator right here https://imgur.com/a/H9Gyy

 

sub'd... I occasionally have the water sound behind the dash as well. Figuring out why would be great!

 

burp your cooling system w/ cap off till it gets to operating temp and make sure your heater is on so that coolant is flowing through the heater core. could just be a little bit of air.

 

I need to go buy coolant first. I assume I need 50/50. Do I need to get a red coolant since that's what is in there now?

1. I will go buy coolant.
2. Come back and let the engine cool. How long?
3. I will fill up the radiator with coolant directly through the radiator cap.
4. Start the engine and check if it's spraying out.

 

If you can place your hand on the top radiator hose for 10 seconds without burning yourself you can open the system

I'd get toyota premix, you can generally get it for a few bucks more than whatever auto parts place carries. If you don't have a local toyota dealer you can just grab premixed at the auto parts store, it'll say if it is compatible

 

Ones 50/50 and the other isn't. OH NOOO

 

the other is mountain dew code red

 

I had another truck that made the noise. It was buildup in the heater core. I flushed the system, and took special attn to flush just the heater core. It still occasionally gurgled, but the frequency was greatly diminished

 

Hello Chris, I had a sloshing sound years ago on a 1991 toyota pickup. Turned out to be a bad head gasket. Pretty common on the 3.0 V6 engines back then. Check your oil and make sure it looks normal. Are you getting a lot of smoke out the tail pipe after truck is at normal operating temp? Just throwing that out there. Clearly looks like you have some form of leak going on there at the top of the radiator. I say if you replace the radiator and your still getting a sloshing sound and your antifreeze is still going down... more then likely a bad head gasket. Good Luck!

 

This ^^^^^^
Especially if the coolant gets low and air gets trapped up in the heater valve.

 

Get a new radiator cap if the current one is old. The gasket could be letting the coolant out once the pressure builds. It should only let the coolant overflow to the reservoir.

If you have a head gasket problem the coolant will turn into a chocolate milkshake color.

 

actually head gasket issues can manifest in many ways. sometimes, they coolant simply escapes through the gasket and burns off through the exhaust. sometimes you have the oil and antifreeze mixing in radiator like you said, and sometimes neither of these things happen and it just overheats like crazy!

The easiest way to check for a head gasket issue is to buy the 30 test kit at an autoparts store that detects exhaust in the radiator.

I imagine the radiator is cracked as that is the most common issues ive had when I'm losing coolant.

 

The combustion pressure in the cylinders is 1000+psi so it's hard to imagine coolant getting sucked into the cylinders through a head gasket leak but no exhaust gases getting into the cooling system.

 

I didn't say you wouldn't have exhaust gasses, just no oil mix. I've seen multiple vehicles with warped heads that just magically made oil and antifreeze disappear but never mixed the two in the radiator. I've seen the milk shake a few times, too. It really just depends on where the head actually warped.

I doubt the OP has a warped head, though.

 

I doubt it's the head gasket either.

I thought the milkshake appearance was just from the exhaust gases. Even without any oil getting in the coolant it will change the appearance of the coolant.