i can drive all day and my TE is fine, but as soon as i put the car in reverse, i can hear a kind of bubbling/pressure release sort of sound and i can smell that coolent/leaking water smell. It ony happens in reverse and it happens nearly all the time. It sounds and smeels like its coming from the heater core area, but not definately. the floor does not feel wet, and the car only uses a tiny bit of water which seems a normal amount. the only other strange thing i have noticed is that the top radiator hose is sucking itself flat.

Anyone got any ideas?

i can drive all day and my TE is fine, but as soon as i put the car in reverse, i can hear a kind of bubbling/pressure release sort of sound and i can smell that coolent/leaking water smell. It ony happens in reverse and it happens nearly all the time. It sounds and smeels like its coming from the heater core area, but not definately. the floor does not feel wet, and the car only uses a tiny bit of water which seems a normal amount. the only other strange thing i have noticed is that the top radiator hose is sucking itself flat.

Anyone got any ideas?

The only thing I can think of for the hose sucking flat would be a blocked recovery hose or something wrong with the cap not allowing the system to draw/ suck fluid out of the overflow tank. As for the other problem, you've got me, motor only runs in one direction so whatever that problem is i'd expect it to do it in any gear. maybe the pump is cavitating due to the vacumn in the system working against it and the bubbling is pockets of air passing through the heater core. Collapsed hoses would restrict the pump, probably not a good thing either.
Sounds crazy but that's the only theory i can think of. I've never personally had such an experience.

Just another thought.
Things don't always get wet when you get a leak either especially if that heater core was just starting to get hairline cracks. It'd be hot enough to evaporate any leak hence the odour. When it cools , less pressure in the system.

i can drive all day and my TE is fine, but as soon as i put the car in reverse, i can hear a kind of bubbling/pressure release sort of sound and i can smell that coolent/leaking water smell. It ony happens in reverse and it happens nearly all the time. It sounds and smeels like its coming from the heater core area, but not definately. the floor does not feel wet, and the car only uses a tiny bit of water which seems a normal amount. the only other strange thing i have noticed is that the top radiator hose is sucking itself flat.

Anyone got any ideas?

Take it to a good mechanic or radiator place and get the coolant system pressure tested to see if any leaks appear.......Should not make a difference whether in drive or reverse a leak is a leak......HTH

It sounds as if you have a split radiator or heater hose somewhere. You say that it uses only the normal amount of water. It should use NONE. I guess that when youy select reverse, you the engine rocks forward and stretches the heater hose.

I would check all hoses and also the engine mounts because you may have excessive movement there as well.

Pressure test will highlight this very quickly.....nothing worse than a pin hole that never leaks when you stick your head under the bonnet.....Also nothing worse than the smell of leaking coolant...very annoying

Ok the problem is solved! possibly the easiest solution ever, pretty funny aswell. The culprit was the radiator cap. I bought it from repco, brand new, they even got me the right one, or so they thought.

The had too short a seal so that when the system pressurised, it would not release the overflow valve, nor would it pickup water from the overflow bottle.
When i pressure tested it i had the cap off and pressure tested using an old radiator cap, with a garden hose fitting and air valve fitting so it could be water and air pressure tested. obviously tho, it couldnt tell teh the radiator cap was at fault because it wasnt on!

The pressure must have been high and released through probably the heater core and hence the smell.

Changed the cap and no more problems.

I solved this quite a while ago but i thought i would post the solution in case anyone else has the same problem.

What let me straight to it was one day when driving the gas started to idle funny, and stalled. The convertor had frozen and it clicked straight away - low coolent, but full overflow - must be the cap!

Moral of the story - Dont always trust the parts the auto places give you!!!!!

Just what I thought originally. Bingo.