if the antifreeze is not changed regular (every 3 or so years) it will go bad and eat away at some of the oem gaskets. (my opinion, the orange stuff is the worst) lower intake, timing cover, head gaskets are common fail points if coolant is not maintained.

 

the elbows are also a common fail but they get brittle with age and crack or break.

 

I don't think I have any issues with the head gasket. Would I see something like coolant in the oil if the intake gaskets had an issue? What about freeze plugs...I've seen a few people talk about having leaks with those.

 

yah ive seen that too, i replaced the ones on the back of the engine when i had it out. 60k on it and they was fine. yes head gasket and lower intake can get coolant in the oil. thats really bad, antifreeze with oil turns acidic at high temps and eats the bearings.

 

Ok. I don't have any coolant/oil issues, so I'm thinking it's front of the engine/timing cover type stuff maybe. I guess I need to figure out where the freeze plugs are to see if there is any issues with them. I don't remember the parts/shop manuals having those identified in the diagrams, but maybe I missed them.

 

have you tried pulling that bolt and putting some high temp thread sealant on it.

 

I haven't yet, because it seems like there is more of a problem than just that bolt. The car had the timing cover done about 11 years ago (only 15k since though), but I imagine over the years that could still have deteriorated.

 

make sure its not coming from above and only showing in that spot. the elbow leaking would show up around there. if memory serves that bolt is the one that has coolant behind it or at least coolant came out of it when i removed it,,, not sure,,, lol, sometimes getting old sucks

 

Ok. Last night I checked this out again, and after reading some threads about water pump bolts, I decided to actually check the torque of the pump bolts. Turns out the larger bolts (33lb ft torque) were all less than that. Even though I properly torqued everything after replacing the wp awhile back. Not sure why they would have loosened up.

So, after all this apparently it was just something up with that particular bolt, and I don't seem to have a leak now. I'm going to loan out a pressure tester again to verify. Question is, if it was that bolt, should I drain the system, pull the bolt and clean it up? Put some good thread sealant on it? Or, should I just leave it alone?

Thanks for the help on this, and maybe it was a lot simpler than I made it out to be.