My 2001 ford taurus is leaking coolant on the firewall side of the engine. is there a coolant hose on that side that could be leaking?

This is a very common problem on the Taurus, at least up until the 2001 model and possibly later. The Taurus design incorporates a bypass hose (near the firewall) that connects between the heater hoses entering and exiting the firewall in the engine compartment. As the Taurus ages (6 or 7 years old), the heater core under the dash increasingly gets clogged with gunk because the bypass hose provides a path for the coolant to bypass the heater core itself. The fix is to disconnect the heater hoses at the engine block (too difficult to disconnect these hoses at the firewall-no space) and flush the heater core through these hoses with a garden hose. Before doing this you must crimp (with vise grips and a rag to protect the rubber hose) the bypass hose--otherwise the flushing water will bypass the heater core. I attached the garden hose to an adapter that I could clamp into the heater hose to make the connection. BTW, the coolant in the radiator was a pristine lime green color -notice the dark brown color of the gunk flushed from the heater core.

check for a pin hole around a hose clamp will be visable when engine is warm and under pressure. so have some one push lightly on accelerator pedal while looking at hoses and clamps look for a small hose as hell front center of motor area below where the carb would be there might be a small hole there

Could be water pump.

this should be the heater core,is the pipe itsself bad or is it just the hose needing replaced?does heat work,is the passengers floorboard wet with coolant?could be the hose bad or the heater core bad,some cars have whats called a heater control valve right there at the firewall that the hoses hook up to,it could be bad,if hoses just hook up to two pipes sticking out of firewall,check hoses first,then look in passengers floor to see if its wet,heater core is inexspensive but costly to have replaced.

If you get on the drivers side of the engine compartment, go back to the firewall and find your steering control and brake master cylinder.
Now look down below those components along the firewall you should see the two connection points (input & output) for your sterring rack.
Those two ports are just to the right of the drivers side rubber boot.

I looked at mine and one hose has a cannister on it and runs along the front of the engine then over the top and down to the rack...while the other hose runs along the bottom of the radiator to the drivers side and stays below the engine area all the way to the rack.

Hope this helps.

the coupling is part of hose.replacing hose should be fairly simple $35 part.good time to flush
the cooling system

Yep - if the coolant is inside the car, you've got a bad heater core. The inlet and outlet ports go through the firewall into the engine compartment and connect to hoses there. If the leak is in the engine compartment, the hoses may be cracked from age and leaking.

there are two small hoses call coolant recovery hose
the larger one is the coolant return hose

jack it up on the passenger side and remove the plastic inner fenders this will give you a better view of the cooling system and the hoses below that run to the water pump and radiator.

pipe going to the fire wall is usualy the cabin heater. for the time being there should be 2 hoses going to the fire wall coolant in/out. remove them from the pipe on the fire wall and blank them off or if the hose is split replace them. it could be the heater core but that usualy leaks into the cab.