We haven't beaten this dead horse up for awhile, so let me begin. Twice in the past two weeks I've had to add coolant to my grandson's 73 Dart /6 auto car. I am about at my wits end as to where the water is going. The radiator was recored a short while back. New heater, radiator, and by-pass hoses. All clamps secure. Absolutely no sign of leaking while the engine is running. Freeze plugs appear intact. No fluids pouring down the firewall on the carpet. No white exhaust smoke. Where is the coolant going? Oh, no recovery bottle on the car but I have never seen it dump fluid when shut off. Please give me some ideas.

You might want to check the trans fluid to make sure your not filling the trans through a leaky cooler in the radiator. And I would suggest to run a recovery bottle on the system to help keep an eye on it. And possibly check the plugs to see if it is getting into the cylinders and burning off. If you don't find it that way you can have the system pressure checked with dye to find it.

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married with more children than cars

See this Thread

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Retighten your hose clamps.........

I once had a slow leak that didn't show up when engine was hot or cold....... (and took quite awhile to find)

If you checked for leaks on cold engine you couldn't find anything, if you checked for on a hot engine same thing.

Then I got lucky, I happened to check after about an hour of cooling down; after shutting down the engine I finally found the leak. Water was seeping out of a hose connection.

It seems that the leak needed pressure behind it to leak; when cold no pressure, no leak; when hot, pressure, but everything had expanded, so again no leak. But after an hour it had cooled enough so that it had unexpanded and there was still pressure in the system and LEAK..

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Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

Thanks again to all who replied and I believe the problem is now solved. For the first time in a long while, my grandson left the 73 Dart in my driveway long enough for me to check it out. A close examination of the radiator hose running to the thermostat caught my attention. I saw coolant on the lower thermostat bolt head and a small puddle just below the thermostat on the block. Decided enough was enough and disconnected the hose with the intent of replacing all hoses, water pump, etc. and discovered the hose clamp connecting the hose to the thermostat wasn't evenly set around the hose. By this I mean, the clamp sort of pinched the side of the hose I couldn't see without disconnecting it, and there I think was the problem. Anyway, replaced the hose, carefully clamped it again, and no more leak. Still trying to figure out how to mount the aftermarket overflow tank. Not much room on the driver side of the radiator between the radiator and battery but I will figure that out in due time.

For the recovery tank, try to grab a factory one. I had a '73 Dart Sport for a while, and got a recovery tank from a '74 a-body. The '73 already had the correct mounting holes for it on the passenger side of the radiator. This is probably the reason for moving the horns under the battery tray.

Steve G.

I had leak (just slow drip, drip) when cold during winter, no leak when warm/hot. It was on 2.2 thermostat housing hose clamp not tight enough.

Cheers, Wizard