I just changed the thermo in the 85 to get it up to running temp (it was at 60 degress) and all is good except that the other day I noticed a small puddle of coolant under the car. Figured it was a hose but no leaks at the hoses.

Then yesterday came out from the grocery store and there is this little river of coolant running from under my car... said "had to be the guy before me". Got home and low and behold the thing is dumping coolant off the balancer. I can see the port (top right) on the water pump insert and it is clean and dry and I cannot spot the actual leak other than it is quite wet under the pump on the block.

Is this the insert failure (port is dry) or just a gasket failure?

Need to get it together today, Sunday, no parts stores are gonna have a gasket either...

__________________
'99 S420 - Mommies
'72 280SE 4.5 - looking to breathe life into it
'84 300SD Grey - Sold
'85 300SD Silver - Sold
'78 Ski Nautique

Not sure about 'port' you are talking about, But if coolant is coming out any of the weep holes on the pump itself then your pump is done, order another ASAP.

Even if it is just the gasket (unlikely) you'd be crazy not to change the pump while you are there, I think they're less than $50 from Fastlane.

you can read my post called 'catastrophic water pump failure' if you want to.

Cheers,
RObert

ps. did you change coolant when you changed your thermo??

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Cheers,
Robert

There is a second weep hole on the bottom of the pump cartridge. Found it this morning...

Yep, as a matter of fact just added a thermo which increased the temp in the car and changed over to Zerox G-05. I think the heat yesterday, AC running and actually building pressure blew it out.

Sorry to bother with a dumb question...

__________________
'99 S420 - Mommies
'72 280SE 4.5 - looking to breathe life into it
'84 300SD Grey - Sold
'85 300SD Silver - Sold
'78 Ski Nautique