Bit of a conundrum this one. Sounds for all the world like an air lock. It is not overheating and not ejecting coolant due to over pressuring of the system by exhaust gas. But it is pressurising the system to make the hoses hard and coolant is being sucked out of the tank when the engine is running. Which does sound like an airlock. He should first check his plugs, if there are no clean ones, then it is safe to assume no coolant is entering the cylinders. He may well have a slight undetected leak because of the overpressure that dries as it escapes. That is why i say static test it. Just wondering if the heater hoses are connected the wrong way round, which is causing an airlock and the pressurising. If he does have a combustion gas leak into the coolant you would expect the motor to overheat and expel coolant after a time. It does not seem to do this, so at this time it seems safe to assume there is no combustion gas entering the system. It is a strange and interesting problem.
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