Wet Around the Radiator Cap How to Diagnose Leaky Worn Radiator Cap

Hey, friends. It's Len here at 1A Auto. Today, we're working on a 2007 Toyota FJ Cruiser, and I'm going to show you how to diagnose a coolant smell.

So, if you want to come right over here, let's say we pop our hood and you smell this sweet smell in the air. Smells a little funny. Doesn't smell normal. Take a peek around. Generally speaking, one of the first things that will go bad on your cooling system when you smell something like that would be your radiator cap. There's a little plunger in there, and when that goes bad, it'll actually vent, which is what it's supposed to do, it'll vent, and you'll start seeing these white crusties. They come all around. Sometimes, you'll see green or even pink, sometimes white. Okay? Comes right down here.

This has been venting pretty good to the point that it's been coming out and even dripping. That would tell me that this radiator cap is no good. What I would do at that point is I would go ahead and replace it. Let's say that we'd replace it. We do sell these at 1aauto.com, by the way. I want to check the fluid, so I'm going to grab my safety glasses. Make sure that I have eye protection, hand protection, because coolant's a chemical. I'm going to keep my mouth closed. We want to make sure that the radiator cap's nice and cool. We didn't just come back from the beach, a nice, long drive, or anything like that. It's cool to the touch, it hasn't been running in a while.

You're going to press down, turn to the left, lift it up. Coolant may or may not come out. Keep that in mind. Keep your eyes protected. Here we go, I'm pushing down. Okay. Got some coolant there. There we are. Here's the inside of our radiator cap. Right here's the little plunger area that I was mentioning to you. Lot of times, the spring in there goes bad, and other times, you'll see it looks like the gasket that runs along there is dry rotted or cracked, which happens a lot. They get really stiff. This one's actually really stiff. It's just not cracked yet. Right along here, you can see where the gasket itself has some damage to it. That's where it rides inside that lip inside your radiator. You can't see it right now, because the coolant's up, but that should hit up against the lip. This is all cracked up, and it's super dry.

I would go ahead and replace this. 1aauto.com.

Thanks for watching. Visit 1aauto.com for quality auto parts shipped to your door. The place for DIY auto repair. And if you enjoyed this video, please click the subscribe button.