Coolant Quandry

[wcsmithiii0911]

Got back from a trip to Ft. Benning to see our grandson off and noticed a strong smell of coolant in the cab. Checked the floors for signs of blown heater core; floors not even damp. Checked under the hood and on the ground, nothing visable. I did notice a white residue around the radiator fill cap. The guages have not shown an increase in temp. Has anyone seen anything like this? Or have any ideas?

 

[DaveBen]

What do you drive????

Dave

 

[RoyBoy]

I'll assume you have a 6.0L diesel. Fill in your sig when you get a chance so we know what you got.
If there are no leaks to be found, I think your truck just puked a little coolant out the reservoir cap. Check the level of the coolant, keep it at the "MIN" line, the "MAX" line is too full (Ford even says so). If your coolant level is very low, top it off (to the "MIN" line) and see what happens, there could be other problems, but I won't jump the gun and spell them out for now.

 

[CHPMustang]

Is the coolant smell more prevalent when you have the AC/Heat with fan on in any position other than MAX AC?

If the answer is yes then the coolant smell is being drawn in from outside the cabin.

 

[powerboatr]

ours has smelled of coolant since day one......finally found it about a month ago the top cap adhesive was not adhesived.....still on order to for a replacement
...

 

[Flopster843]

The EGR cooler has been known to "flash boil" the coolant during operation. The amount of coolant running thru it is not enough to keep up with the high heat of the exhaust gas going thru it. This causes what's in the egr cooler to boil and raise pressure in the coolant system causing it to spew out of the degass bottle cap. Ford updated the cap a while back to solve this problem, I'm not sure if you have the new or old and I can't tell them apart.