Hello all,
First I haven't needed to post a question in a long time which is a tribute to these great vehicles! I have a 99 SR5 4runner with 187000 miles. Very trouble free vehicle. 2 weeks ago I was away on a business trip and after having vehicle in a parking garage for a week in the city I noticed a small 3" or so puddle of antifreeze. under the right side of the radiator when facing car from the front. Got under there found a small drip from what i thought was the hose on the Tranny return line on the right that has the 90 degree fitting into the radiator. I thought that was odd to see antifreeze there. I finally have time to look at this in depth and crawled under it yesterday and found that entire connector with the 90 degree elbow basically popped right out of the radiator. the threads were badly degraded on the connector. There is no way to put it back in. but what confused me is... why would antifreeze come out of this port. I expected to get just ATF.
Mind you this is the original radiator and NO i have had no symptoms of strawberry milkshake etc. the ATF on the distick appears normal, slightly brown red but certainly not milkshake. nothing in the overflow, no overheating, no burping so forth.
So I will certainly need a new radiator and that is fine but my real question here is... has anyone taken that specific connector out of an older radiator and will in fact get antifreeze under normal conditions out of that port hole? I was not sure of the internals. It appears the 90 deg connector has about 1 inch of tube with an O ring that goes into the AT cooler portion. My mind tells me however it wouldn't normally allow Antifreeze out that same port unless it was bad.
So I am left to wonder if it just went bad and I am catching it that quick of if this is in fact simply the design of the said radiator and fitting?
and yes I probably should have replaced the radiator long ago but sadly enough like most things I just was not aware of these issues til I started researching this specific question online..
At this point I certainly do not believe anything was contaminated but if someone on here knows the specifics I'd appreciate it!
Thank you
First I haven't needed to post a question in a long time which is a tribute to these great vehicles! I have a 99 SR5 4runner with 187000 miles. Very trouble free vehicle. 2 weeks ago I was away on a business trip and after having vehicle in a parking garage for a week in the city I noticed a small 3" or so puddle of antifreeze. under the right side of the radiator when facing car from the front. Got under there found a small drip from what i thought was the hose on the Tranny return line on the right that has the 90 degree fitting into the radiator. I thought that was odd to see antifreeze there. I finally have time to look at this in depth and crawled under it yesterday and found that entire connector with the 90 degree elbow basically popped right out of the radiator. the threads were badly degraded on the connector. There is no way to put it back in. but what confused me is... why would antifreeze come out of this port. I expected to get just ATF.
Mind you this is the original radiator and NO i have had no symptoms of strawberry milkshake etc. the ATF on the distick appears normal, slightly brown red but certainly not milkshake. nothing in the overflow, no overheating, no burping so forth.
So I will certainly need a new radiator and that is fine but my real question here is... has anyone taken that specific connector out of an older radiator and will in fact get antifreeze under normal conditions out of that port hole? I was not sure of the internals. It appears the 90 deg connector has about 1 inch of tube with an O ring that goes into the AT cooler portion. My mind tells me however it wouldn't normally allow Antifreeze out that same port unless it was bad.
So I am left to wonder if it just went bad and I am catching it that quick of if this is in fact simply the design of the said radiator and fitting?
and yes I probably should have replaced the radiator long ago but sadly enough like most things I just was not aware of these issues til I started researching this specific question online..
At this point I certainly do not believe anything was contaminated but if someone on here knows the specifics I'd appreciate it!
Thank you
