What is this that's peeing away my coolant?

[Tcamara7]

Hello all,

My check radiator fluid light is mostly always on, and sometimes it blinks. There is a problem with my fluid as I put in lots and it either burns up or leaks out (I'm not sure which). White smoke comes out of my exhaust and into the interior of the car. The smoke actually fogs up my windshield. The inside of the car where the feet go becomes hot (I haven't driven it around at length, but after 10 or so minutes it became toasty). The smoke or steam (it's hard to tell because of the whiteness) leaks out of the vents inside the car as well.

Ok, so I checked the compression and with the engine cold, each cylinder is 175psi ± 5, and when the engine is hot, each is 155 ± 5. I also recently changed the head gasket, pretty much because I just wanted to, I might not have needed it at that time, but upon removal it seemed to be on its way out anyways.

All of the hoses that I could see weren't leaking, and I had a friend rev up the engine to see if any would squirt liquid, which they didn't. I looked around where the majority of the smoke was coming from, and it was between the false bulkhead and the engine. I looked closely and I saw this weird tube looking thing that was slowly leaking out watery fluid (I assume it's the coolant).

This weird pipe/tube thing does not connect to anything that I can see and does not look damaged to me. When I bought this car the upper torque arm's bushings were completely worn out and when pushing the car, the engine would slam around (perhaps this broke something).

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/b...mara7/leak.jpg

The purple markings are around the open pipe thing that leaks coolant. It is found in front of the false bulkhead, about half the way down vertically in the engine bay, and in the middle horizontally. I'm sorry that the picture is bad, but I can't find my digital camera's USB cord so it was taken with my phone.

Any help as to what this thing is, if it's supposed to leak (even though leak kinda indicates fault) or how to fix it would be very much appreciated.

[shinobidice]

I'm pretty sure that's the drain for water that runs in the vents from just behind the hood. If it's coolant, I think your heater core ship the bed.

[harman]

Yes more than likely the heater core is bad. open the bulkhead - easy to do and check the hoses going to the heater core, they may be broken or loose and you would also be able to determine if your heater core needs to be replaced.
thats just a drain for draining water when it rains or leaks so no worrys about it.

[Tcamara7]

Thanks guys, I'll probably be checking it out this weekend.

How would I tell if the heater core is bad?

[harman]

from your description of the problem- having steam fogging up your interior windshield it strongly suggests that your heater core is bad, thats one sign of bad heater cores on most vehicles if not all.
to check remove the top false bulkhead cover and its firewall, you will see the blower motor housing. look for two coolant hoses that run into the dash area from the engine, they are to the lower right of the blower housing. these connect directly to the heater core. note for leaking coolant around this area. if the hoses are intact then your heater core is leaking
there is a how to on saab9000.com on how to replace the heater core

[biklmon]

While you are at it, check the condition of all of your coolant hoses for wear and check that they are fastened tight but not too tight.

At first, I thought you had a monkey in your dash, peeing. That would explain the fog.