Any update on this, I replaced my thermostat a year ago and have had a very slow leak ever sense, and now the leak is much worse to where I took every thing apart again. I do have the seal in my housing, but I think it may be bad.

Please advise

 

I thought I would chime in here and respond to your question. There could be several things going on here so I will go through them one at a time. First do you notice the smell of coolant? Second, when you replaced the thermostat did you check the valley under the intake manifold for coolant, this will help determine where the leak may be coming from. Third did you change all seals and inspect the mating surface for possible imperfections that could possibly cause a leak reusing old gaskets for these vehicle is only asking for future headaches. Forth, were there any noticeable leaks before you started this procedure. Fifth where is the leak, and is it noticeable or is it just a depletion of coolant in the tank?
Ok, now that that is out of the way, the only other option if all of that has been covered is did you replace all of the gaskets in the area that you exposed which to my knowledge should give you a visible drip of some kind somewhere on the front of the engine and and if large enough on the floor of your garage. Now barring all of these outcomes there is another possibility or two, under the thermostat housing there are two 50 cent sized gaskets that from the factory were pinched and leaked a small amount of coolant over the age of the vehicle. These have been know to start to leak more significantly over time and with the replacement of a water pump and improved coolant system pressure cause these seals to fail and dump fluid into the valley under the intake manifold.
You may be able to check this with a camera without removing the manifold I believe. If this is not the culprit then it may be the seals in the the pipe that goes from the thermostat housing to the back to the block. My feeling is that if you check these problem areas out you should be able to resolve the problem. Good Luck Let me know what you find.

 

Hello, thank you for the reply.

Back story. I replaced my plastic intake socket in Jan of 2016 with an aluminum one from ECS Tuning. I had no leaks with the plastic intake socket at the time and this was only done as a preventative measure. The thermostat housing gaskets on its underside were not replaced at this time.

Anyway, I smelled coolant from that day forward and after towing my boat 500 miles to my next duty station in July of 2017, the smell was extremely bad.... I opened her up to take a look and there was coolant that had gelled/ crystalized in the 'V' roughly 1/4in deep. I cleaned it all out as the first step, and replaced the under side gaskets on the thermostat housing as I knew everything else was relatively new. I also replaced my water pump because the shaft had some play in it.

Upon replacing the water pump, I figured I would inspect the thermostat and intake socket. I relubed it, and stuck it back in, installed the pump, closed everything back up, refilled the coolant and went for a drive. Upon parking the car at my house, coolant was pouring out!

I filled the system from the reservoir, and just as fast as I poured it in, it was coming out. I opened everything back up and was as able to determine that the leak was coming from the old aluminum intake socket as I could see a constant yet subtle disturbance (about a drop every 3 seconds) of the coolant that was sitting under the thermostat housing in the forward most pocket of the 'V' after pouring a cup of coolant in the reservoir. It leaked from the housing to the rear of the 'V' where it then went down the drain and out the bottom of the bell housing.

This past weekend, I reordered a new aluminum intake socket from ESC Tuning. Upon receiving the new intake socket, I immediately noticed the difference between the old and the new. The new one has red gaskets and the old had black. The material is different as well. New gaskets are slightly less dense yet with the elasticity to hold its shape when compressed. The old gaskets have a visible impression along the edge of both rings where it mated with the thermostat housing (it is not the line that is left from the molding process of making the gasket), and this leads me to believe the gaskets were crap to begin with ; not to mention, the intake socket pulled out with little to no force at a all, as opposed to removing the original plastic intake socket, which was a significant emotional event.

I purchased a new thermostat and I am awaiting for it to arrive as well so I will be slapping all new parts in there with the exception of a new thermostat housing itself. If it leaks again, that will be the next part to be replaced though the housing had no pitting or damage where it mates with the intake socket gaskets.

The rest of my parts will be here on Monday so I will provide an update when I put everything back together.

 

Great thread, lots of good information....

I have had code P2181 for over a year now and here in CA, it would not pass smog with CEL light on.... I decided it needs a new thermostat, highway driving temp is <180....
Started with taking things apart and found the pipe from thermostat housing loose... (lucky it didn't come all the way out). I see a lot of white crud in the bottom of the V, but nothing wet.... I notice the pipes are brass, glued into the aluminum housing... I am planning on trying some epoxy to reset the loose pipe and avoid spending $300 for new housing. There have been some times I could faintly smell hot coolant, and maybe I have a stuck thermostat keeping things a bit cooler the thank for not having a big failure.... 08S has 108K, so I plan to replace the WP....

Anu recommendations as to removing thermostat housing and replacing all gaskets and seals, or wait to see if the epoxy works (plan on using my golf club shaft epoxy) and hope there are no leaks.

What is the part number for the updated housing? Anyone know why the housings were replaced?



Loose coolant pipe on left



Is the 948.106.260.02 the updated housing?

 

So for me, it was in fact that thermostat socket gasket. I’ve been running the car hard since the swap out in Oct, and not the least bit of stitch of coolant. Before I closed everything back up, I washed the ‘v’ and let the warm soapy water travel the same route the coolant took when it was leaking.

 

I will need to wash out the V too..... it's so dried up, looks like I'll meet to soak it a while.

 

Hi KTI & everyone
Does anyone have any part number or availability information on this gasket? I think I have the same issue after several attempts at changing parts and boiling thermostats like my kitchen was a laboratory

KTI, what was your resolution on this?

 

Interesting, Looks like maybe there is a seal in there. One in back too!
My 08 is still apart to replace thermostat



Phone photo of 2008 CayenneS thermostat housing

I will need to check the fit of the thermostat, seems like the seal inside doesn't sit above the edge of the stainless.....

 

Found both pipes loose ....



Both were loose.



Cleaned and ready to epoxy...



One done, other inprocess, spread epoxy inside housing



Applied epoxy to pipe



I used the hoses to hold pipes in place while epoxy sets.



Finished! I'm happy with results...

 

As an update, I was just at the dealer to look at the new housing and can now confirm that there is a seal inside the housing. It is apparent the problem I am having with my thermostat is in fact the failure of the seal and coolant freely flowing past the seal.

Time to search on-line for seals .... don't want to spend $400 on a new housing.

 

Awesome. Thank you for the observation (and replying so promptly!)

I am a third owner of this vehicle as well and the problem exhibited itself when the temperature started falling. Were you able to take a picture of the part? Was it a flat o-ring? was it a soft/hard rubber composite or was it metal like a bushing? If it was a flat metal bushing I may try to make it on a lathe from a piece of brass or aluminum. I don't want to spend $400 either!

 

Okay, I think I struck gold last night.... found the part at Rockauto... Its a MotoRad S401 Thermostat seal....


MotoRad S401

http://www.motoradusa.com/parts-loca...#ProductDetail

With the MotoRad vehicle list, this seal is available locally at a few O'Rileys stores $4.99..... Easiest to search for the 2006 Dodge 1500 V-10

 

THANK YOU!

I see they are out of stock. You must have bought the entire lot of them.

Luckily, there are other vendors on other sites carrying them.

I will 1st double check I am missing this part then report back my results. I took pictures of the area but had to do it with a mirror due to the cramped quarters. I'm pretty sure it's missing as I questioned this area twice, but there's a lot different bends and curves in the picture so I want to be sure.

 

I only bought one....I think the issue is that it fits many cars.... as for checking to see if you are needing the seal, I was able to feel inside and the metal edges were above the seal which now I know the entire lip of the seal is gone.... at this point, I would want to replace the seal because it is apparently rubber and hardens with age and use....

I'll have to see how easy it is to remove. I might take the housing off because I need to replace the o-rings on the small tube in back

 

The seal arrived today and I think I can get by without replacing it. When I put the thermostat on the seal, I was amazed at the size. What I thought was a missing seal is just the seal set for the size of thermostat sleeve.

I removed the purple seal from the old thermostat and slid it into the housing. Slight pressure to push it into old seal in the housing. Slides easily with a slight drag.... I think it'll work just fine.