HoosierBuddy
Well-known member
Hey guys,
I forked over the $46 to order this on Amazon the other day and was really impressed with how helpful it was. Not sure how many of you non-professionals have one of these in your toolbox, but it's at least worth considering if you are trying to track down a very small coolant leak on one of your cars or trucks.
Essentially, it's just a little hand pump and 4 adapters that let you take off your radiator cap and pump 10 PSI, or so, of air into your cooling system to simulate the pressure it will see when it's HOT...without getting it hot. Then you can track down your leak issue pretty quickly.
In my case, I was attempting to locate a very small leak on a Subaru WRX that was so small it really didn't even create drops on the ground. The coolant was evaporating from the leaking area without dripping. Unfortunately even that small of a leak would allow enough coolant out of the car to create air pockets after a month or so if sitting, that would cause the car to puke out the rest of the coolant once you tried to drive it.
I hooked up this mityvac unit to the coolant tank near the intercooler and it took 60 seconds to verify the leak was coming from the radiator area. It was a bit more work to remove the radiator from the car, disassemble the electric fans from it, plug all the holes and retest it separately to actually SEE where the leak was...but once I did all that and used the mityvac directly on the radiator (filled with water) a small leak was clearly visible on the engine side of the radiator right above the transmission cooler tank.
I've chased a lot of small coolant leaks over the years that I think this pump would have really been a huge help in tracking down. Glad I have it in my toolbox now!
Phil
I forked over the $46 to order this on Amazon the other day and was really impressed with how helpful it was. Not sure how many of you non-professionals have one of these in your toolbox, but it's at least worth considering if you are trying to track down a very small coolant leak on one of your cars or trucks.
Essentially, it's just a little hand pump and 4 adapters that let you take off your radiator cap and pump 10 PSI, or so, of air into your cooling system to simulate the pressure it will see when it's HOT...without getting it hot. Then you can track down your leak issue pretty quickly.
In my case, I was attempting to locate a very small leak on a Subaru WRX that was so small it really didn't even create drops on the ground. The coolant was evaporating from the leaking area without dripping. Unfortunately even that small of a leak would allow enough coolant out of the car to create air pockets after a month or so if sitting, that would cause the car to puke out the rest of the coolant once you tried to drive it.
I hooked up this mityvac unit to the coolant tank near the intercooler and it took 60 seconds to verify the leak was coming from the radiator area. It was a bit more work to remove the radiator from the car, disassemble the electric fans from it, plug all the holes and retest it separately to actually SEE where the leak was...but once I did all that and used the mityvac directly on the radiator (filled with water) a small leak was clearly visible on the engine side of the radiator right above the transmission cooler tank.
I've chased a lot of small coolant leaks over the years that I think this pump would have really been a huge help in tracking down. Glad I have it in my toolbox now!
Phil
The check valve is basically a Holley carburetor accelerator pump check valve and it needs a pretty smooth surface to seal on. The sealing surface is down in the bottom of the pump cylinder and is going to be very hard to repair.