Looking for a critical path approach to this. Son borrowed my Suburban for his honeymoon camping trip from SoCal to Jasper. In addition to the reported loss of boost (problem solved = wastegate solenoid) he reported a coolant leak and smelling coolant when hot. Since his return in July I've put on 5K miles towing and going up mountains to 9500' and I've had to top off the coolant reservoir twice. Never see anything on pavement when I park the truck. No coolant smell in the exhaust.

However, I do see coolant beading up around the small hose to the T-Stat housing along with a stain indicating a leak:
http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm50/BigThres/T-StatHose.jpg

Underneath I see a fresh stain along the lower hose from the water pump to the radiator:
http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm50/BigThres/LowerRadiatorHosetoWaterPump.jpg

I also see fresh coolant along the bottom of the engine behind the crank pulley:
http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm50/BigThres/BottomFrontEngineII.jpg

And that whole area behind the crank pulley is crusty/greasey/grimey:
http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm50/BigThres/CrankPulley.jpg

I installed the '97 high volume water pump and T-stat housing about 100K miles ago. How long do the water pumps last?

I'm thinking first thing is to degrease the engine, maybe with degreaser and a pressure washer. Then maybe I can zero in on the leak. Or should I simply just go in and replace the water pump, all new gaskets and hoses? These are the original hoses. Again looking for a critical path to trouble shoot it. Sorta relieved I've already eliminated blown head gaskets or cracked block.

Steve

I would degrease it and pressure wash it off real good, then run it and see what you can see.

That's a pretty big leak. It looks minor because engine heat and fan blowing dry it up real quick. It could be that the clamp isn't tight enough, or the hose has a small crack in it where the clamp is

That first one is a common leak.

Here is an informative old thread that helped me:

http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/showthread.php?t=138989

2 options, buy the same one or buy the barbed version, all in the thread with part no. IIRC, you can find both part at the Help section.