Hi,

Did a flush and fixed a hose clamp and thought I had this licked. Runs out there is something else. Looks like one of the fisherprice parts has developed a leak. I checked YouTube and the job looks similar to a Ford 2.0 focus and it’s a common failure. Anyone else here did this job?

Driver Side

Dripping near one of the bolts holding the outlet housing.

 

Not a bad job, seen it before, but mostly on the fords.

 

It's been a while but I finally worked up the courage to mess with this. It took me 3 hours, no beer, to get the outlet piece out. I ended up removing the battery and the ECU to kinda see what I was doing. Droppen both my "good" 8mm socket and my cheap backup in there. Managed to magnet fish both. :-(

Upside is the plastic housing is definitely compromised. Some of the inner lip that hold the gasket is missing (see pic in RED) and I found some fragments in the RTV. That said, based on the quantity of RTV, obviously someone was in there before and did something. I had planned to put some RTV on the new install but not sure if that's a good idea anymore.

Q?: Should I put some anyway or hope this flimsy gasket will hold on it's own?

Q?:I guess my other question, are there any significant differences in quality of the replacement part?

I can find them for anywhere from under $20 to $100+. The one I took off looks like it was made by Fisher-Price. Any known quality difference in these or they are all made the same and the more expensive one come with a warranty that, if it fails they will give you another one for free so you can pay the mechanic to replace it?

 

It might be worth looking at OEM stuff. That has a FoMoCo stamp on it, so it’s likely OEM. That said it could be the same issue as Mazda had with the thermostats in the 1st gen 3. The original ones tended to stick open, and eventually they replaced it with a newer part number that was better made. All of the aftermarket ones were notorious for being cheaply made and always had short lifespans. It’s possible there’s an updated part number for that part.

 

Update:

I finally got it done several weeks ago. Purchase a cheap replacement from auction site for $20-30 and bolted it in tight but not too tight since couldn't find a torque spec handy.

No leak so far but can't say I've gone anywhere with it. Hope it last a little while.

 

Thanks for sharing. I had the same issue on my 2012. The coolant was accumulating somewhere on the engine and would only drip when the car was jacked up/tilted. I got a replacement part from Rockauto and now no more leaks. Thanks again.