Coolant Leak - Coolant Smell In Cabin - Heat Working

[Woody86]

Good Afternoon Folks,

After replacing rad/alt/water pump/hoses in the Spring I'm now enjoying the wonderful smell of coolant in the cabin and a significant loss of fluids. At first I thought maybe I didn't bleed the system well enough and now that the temperatures are dropping all the coolant is finally being run into the heating system.

Earlier today I topped everything up and ran it for a few minutes with fans/temp at max to cycle everything and was able to somewhat trace a leak.


The yellow-dot hose connects to the cabin and seems to be a condensation outlet based on the diagrams i've been able to find and had a significant amount of run-off when I shut the vehicle off.

The heater valve and send/return lines on the engine side of the firewall are bone dry and show no signs of leaking.

Before I get into tearing the dash apart: is this pure coincidence? or is this a sure sign that either the heater core or something connected to it is losing a lot of liquid?

Thanks for your help!