[s-cars] Coolant Leak

[Keith Franchetti]

Hi All-

Family trip from VT to Boston was made interesting this weekend.  When we
shut the car off upon arriving in Boston, my daughter pointed out a hissing
sound, which led to my noticing a small river of coolant coming from under
the car.

Turns out, there was a thin stream, but spraying pretty hard, coming from a
pinhole in a line I never would have guessed contained coolant.  It's a
short rubber hose (6" or so?) running under the fuel rail area and also
near (under also, possibly) the coolant manifold.  Odd thing is that when
the car is warm and running, the leak is a pretty slow drip.  It's when the
car is shut down that it becomes a much harder, steady stream.  If I loosen
the res. cap, that slows it back to a slow drip.

Anyway, I'm hoping to pull the line tomorrow and just replace with
something from my local parts store.  But I wanted to check and see if
anyone has ever had a similar leak, or knows why it would be worse when car
is off.  And also if the consensus would be I need to get a part number and
replace with a "real" part, Thanks in advance.

PS- I managed to get the family home to VT without my wife knowing there
was a chance we'd be stranded . . . . again.  You all might remember our
Thanksgiving Day fiasco with the loose spark plug giving way, and the rest
of that day spent in a Greyhound station.  This would have been a
resounding strike 2.  And in this game, you definitely only get 2 strikes!

Keith Franchetti
Burlington VT