Guess what I found last night

[smokinpipes]

I have to ask the question first; why is it every single vehicle clamors for attention *AT THE SAME TIME*????

The benz needs tires, I start my '85 project with an IP and injector swap, with plans to pick up a C6 this weekend, then...

Last night, I went out into town to fill up 'slim' and as I stopped at the local drive through heart attack, I go to restart my truck (they always complain it's too loud > ); and it cranks VERY slowly for about a second, and stops ... uh oh... Panic mode sets in, pop hood, and find a loose battery terminal, wiggle it and we're good.
I arrive home to take the terminal off, clean and reconnect it, and I figured I've got the hood up I'll check around, and what do I find... a puddle of antifreeze pooled up over the #7 glow plug.

I haven't had time to do anything with it, but in your experiences, how likely is it that it's just the intake manifold / valley pan? The last time I had anything similar happen, I had a nice stream coming up; but that was a different engine, and it was on the number 4, and I never noticed any weeping prior.
The cooling system still had pressure on it, so it's not too bad yet; but I am not in a position to do a head gasket, or any other in depth surgery at this point.


When I get home from the tire shop, and a hair cut, and if I have time before I have a wedding to attend later in the afternoon, I'll clean up the top of the engine, and pressurize the cooling system and see what I get and report back here.

-Steamingpipes

 

[jaluhn83]

I can't see any way a head gasket would show up that way. The valley bottom edge is even with the head gasket, so *if* it failed that way it's most likely go down the valley into the oil. So my guess would be valley pan gasket.

The better question though is if you're *sure* it's coming from the engine and not just some sort of spill / splash / whatever? I've seen some weird stuff where it turned out to not be a leak at all, just liquid polling there from something else.

Personally, I'd clean the snot out of that area, do a good visual inspection and then run it for a bit and recheck. You'll also want to pay attention to coolant levels. If it is actually a leak you'll see a decrease. Check the oil for contamination too. I'd also try pressurizing the cooling system with a pressure tester and see what happens.