am getting antifreeze odor when driving and after stopping Does not appear to be coming from radiator or any signs in the exhaust. Am losing some antifreeze from expansion tank. I am planning to change thermostat housing replacing the plastic housing - any heads up on doing this Would appreciate some input on further checking or solutions

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2001 XK8 (added by GGG)

 

What car ? For the V8s, the coolant header tank and thermostat housing are the most common places, but supercharged V8s have a pipe between the V which also gives way, and also gives a lot of grief due to the labour charges to fix a $10 pipe.

 

I've added vehicle details from your profile and moved your question from General Tech Help to XK8/XKR forum. Members here with the same model will be able to help.

Graham

 

The coolant smell is obviously a leak. The only way to find a hidden leak is to perform a pressure test on the cooling system. You will probably find that the heater inlet or outlet hose is leaking. Since the leak will flow into the valley area of a hot engine and boil off you only get the odor. It could also be at any connection near an exhaust area. That would also boil off the fluid.
I recommend the Harbor Freight test kit for radiators since it has the right adapters.

 

Valley or the dreaded octopus hose.
don't be intimidated you can fix it.
A genuine pita but do-able for sure. I did them so most should be able to

 

One common place is all of the hoses/reservoir above the left cat. Drips onto the cat have been the bane of one of my cars. Both the hoses from the heater matrix, and the reservoir have appeared at different times. So, with everyone else's suggestions, essentially any of the hoses above hot things....

Second the pressure tester.

 

There are a couple of "norma" connectors above the cats that connect to the octopus hose. A drip here is pretty common (after years) and it will evaporate quickly. You can look around on top of the cats in that area for orange residue or staining. There are threads on here about replacing the o-rings to fix this leak - at least temporarily. Here's one -

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ctopus-215787/