This happened across a couple of days..........................
Been noticing a small leak at the front of my Stang on my driveway since a couple of weeks ago............looked under her & saw the leak dripping off the underside air dam that covers the bottom of radiator........knew it wasn't engine oil thus was either an AC refrigerant or engine coolant leak but couldn't see anything from up top (can see the air dam but couldn't see any leakage on it) so I knew I'll have to put her in the air & remove the air dam cover to then find this leak.........
Did this Wednesday............found the leak was engine coolant........coming from the weld seams at bottom of radiator tanks (Mishimoto HP 3-Row rad has developed some very small stress cracks from heat cycling over the last 4 yrs........doesn't leak at all upon engine cold startup & running........only when engine is shut down & during the cooldown process she'll start to weep a little coolant until the rad cools off & internal pressure is relieved........rinse & repeat.
So, I'll need to get a replacement radiator in the near future............but while under there I also found this
:
Passenger side tire inner shoulder edge is worn off down to the inner core & edge of steel core showing! Checked DS side tire & found the same thing but a lot less severe. Just on the very edge of inner tire shoulders, rest of tire looks good........doesn't look like the alignment was off.
I had noted some light steering wheel shimming at times thus my initial read was tie rod ends (the inner tie rods were still the 16 yr old OEM's......had replaced both outer tie rods some 5 yrs ago due to busted dust boots found on the OEM parts) so while she was in the air, I checked both sides........DS side was solid, PS had a little 9-to-3 play in her as well as a little 6-to-12 & I could see the inner tie rod's dust boot move in time thus said inner tie rod........so I said screw it & bought a full set of tie rods for both sides & replaced all as pairs along w\ a set of front wheel hubs & new nuts (these were also still the 16 yr old OEM parts), but O'Reilly's had to order the inner tie rod ends & wheel hubs (wanted their Precision line of suspension parts & not the Max Pro stuff........better made w\ better warranties......lifetime on the tie rods & 3 yrs on the wheel hubs) to take all this out of the picture thus now the whole front end has been gone thru as well as the rear.
All this happened over the last 2 days........finishing all up Friday evening (did work as the parts arrived) & have visited the local Discount Tire & have ordered 2 Conti Extreme Contact DWS06 Plus tires in 265\40\18 instead of the current 255\40\18 I ran on the front (this will now set the front\rear tire stagger back to the original 07-09 GT500 front\rear 30mm stagger)........they'll be in Tues the 26th so once these are mounted & installed she's off to the alignment shop (local Ford dealership) once again to make sure that alignment is good (have touched the tie rods) & no excessive negative camber is involved (shouldn't be as the Ford Performance camber bolts haven't moved from last alignment done some 3 yrs ago).
Test drive was good overall...........had a slight pull to the left but was very smooth\solid in feel..........but I also switched the PS tire (worst 1) to the DS side & DS tire to the PS since the DS showed to have worn far less. All new tie rods were the same length as the old stuff thus the thread counts should have put all essentially back to original position (23 1\2 T's on PS, 23 T's on DS).
So, I grounded her for the time being until I get the tires replaced so my '03 Dodge RAM 1500 will get some love in the meantime.
Hell of a deal!
