Coolant leak from (insert here)
 

A bit of a coolant leak sprung today from here, which I can't identify. After driving it home about 5 miles it smelled hot, and steam rose from that area 15 minutes after shutting it off. I'm hoping the leak pictured here is the only one, because when it first happened the puddle was about 2 feet wide. Now it's in the driveway, and only a few drops have come out.

The picture seems to be of the area below the alternator mount bracket. I am not aware of anywhere that coolant can leak below the alternator bracket. I would chance to say that you may have a leak from the thermostat, water pump, or coolant hose from up above the alternator, and it is drizzling down the block and behind the alternator bracket, then to the ground from there. Id be looking somewhere above the alternator for a leak.

Check your 'short coolant hose'. It goes between the water pump and the thermostat housing.

To replace it is not too hard, probably 1-2 hours for an indy tech. To replace it you need to remove the thermostat housing from the block, and replace it. the most time consuming part of the job is removing the old thermostat-to-block housing.

Get new hose clamps too.

Also, if this hose blew, all your other hoses are probably in similar condition. Replace them all.

Do a coolant flush and put in the correct orange MB coolant or Zerex G-05 :D

dd

The culprit
 

Here it be ... At least it's only a hose. Yeah I would really love to replace all the hoses, flush and replace with Mercedes coolant but the I'm pretty short funded.. I took a pay cut this month at work (while the boss drives away in a new Lexus.)

Oh yeah I also saw something I've never noticed before, unrelated to my coolant leak. There's a dial with numbers going up, 60 70 80 .. What is this thing? It's turned all the way up, the marker is on 80 .. This isn't the stretch of the timing chain is it? If so I've got a lot of work to do