Radiator smell from bunk AC

I had some leaks under the hood the other day filling my cab with so much of that smell that your talking about. It irritated my eyes all weekend after driving in it on a Friday.
I spent that weekend fixing all of them.

I put 10 PSI on the cooling system and found 3 different coolant leaks.
I found:
1 - 2" stripped hose clamp
1 - make do 1" oversized Oreillys hose oozing
and the valve that shuts the water off to change the coolant filter was dripping even at 7 PSI
Its packing nut needed tightening.

Nothing was dripping on the ground in normal use but apparently some was seeping out and getting in hot places while running down the road.

 

Lift up the bed and get into where the a/c and heater cores are, then look for leaks?

 

You might have a hole in your heater core. That happens after a few years of not circulating the water through there in the summer. It's always a good idea to run your heater for a few minutes every week in the warmer months just to keep the cores flushed.

 

Here's a pic of my home made coolant pressure tester. The quick coupler is used like a hose barb. I don't use that style of couplers. I didn't use the ball valve and larger fitting, I just keep it stuck on right there to keep it all together. I have a bunch of other fittings available as well for putting air and water at the same time to blast the inside of radiators and drain plugs on car radiators.

I regulate my shop air so I cant get more than 10 psi. I could go whatever the cap is rated at. I think it's like 14 psi but 10 is a plenty. I tee'd into a small return line at the reservoir and didn't lose any coolant that way. I use a 30 Psi gauge for low pressure applications. Its always best to have a gauge that barely exceeds the desired pressure for testing. For instance if I had a 700 PSI gauge I'd never know if I lost 3 psi.