Chrysler Repair: WATER POURING OUT/NO HEAT, water coolant, blown hose

Question
I have a 1999 Seabring with around 136k miles on it.  Over the past year I have had problems with it over heating, causing spark pulgs to foul out due to water damage.(This was during the hot summer months)  We have replaced the theromostat and flushed the radiator and changed the cap.  This seemed to fix the issue for a short time, but then it started loosing water(coolant, etc) and we could not determine where it was coming from.  Yesterday we had our 1st hard freeze and my car was working fine.  However when I started it this morning it started making a squeeling sound, I thought it was possiably a belt.  I drove my 15 mins to work.  As I was driving I noticed the thermostat would not warm up and I was getting no heat from the vents.  Then it seemed suddenly that it the gauge jumped up to a moderate level, but still no heat. As I was sitting at a light, I watched the guage continue to climb, and steam was coming from under the front of my car, and still no heat.  My husband came later this afternoon, thinking it might have been a blown hose.  When he poured water in the car, to check for the leak, the water poured out at a very fast rate.  It still starts and runs, for now.  My husband feels that it could be a blown rear freeze plug or a cracked block.  Do you have any ideas?

Answer
Hi Melissa,
It would help if you could find out from what general area of the engine the water was leaking. I assume that you have the 3.0L V-6, correct?
There is pipe that returns water to the water pump that runs between the banks of cylinders along the upper middle of the motor (hidden by the intake manifold) and that pipe is supplied by the radiator and secondarily by the return hose from the heater core. You will see it on the top surface of the transmission and it enters the rear of the engine and then is no longer visible. It is actually two pipe sections with an O-ring to seal the connection, and  there is a second O-ring at the very forward end of the front section of the pipe where it enters the water pump. You could have a leak at either of those O-rings which I believe you can access by removing the two sections of pipe (by removing the bolts that hold their mounting
brackets in place (one at the trans, the other at the rear of the engine) pulling out the pipe and putting on new 0-rings. Water would be flowing out either the rear top of the engine where the pipe is, or out the front top of the engine where the timing belt cover is if this were the source of the leak.
The other possibility is that you have a blown head gasket on one of the banks of cylinders. That would be consistent with the water soaked spark plugs of last summer, as well as the behavior of your temperature gauge yesterday. You might also see excessive white smoke from the exhaust when the engine is idling upon first start up, a prematurely pressurized radiator with rumbling sounds, or foamy condition of the oil on the dipstick if you has such a head gasket leak.
I think either of those are more likely than the cracked block or the freeze plug theory. So look at the signs and symptoms I described above to see which are present.
Feel free to write back with your observations or questions.
Roland