Coolant running down outside of torque convertor inspection cover

So is this where your coolant leak is at?

 

Yup. Drivers side all the way at the right rear corner. Finally found it with the right light

 

I suppose the best news is that you found the leak, right? You were wanting to install head studs too weren't you? Maybe not, but I'm just trying to make the situation seem a little bit less ugly.

 

Lol I wish. I was just getting ready to post it for sale, not ponder spending X amount of dollars! Or sell her with a leaky head gasket and take the hit.

 

Farmer Rock already said that he'd buy it in the "so what did you do with your truck today?" thread.

 

Pull the valve covers off and retorque the heads

 

That's what my pop who maintains diesels on a farm said to try. I'm dubious, won't the bolts have stretched too much to hold? I mean I'm still gonna do it just curious

 

I did this a couple years ago, had very small leaks on both rear heads. You'll be amazed how loose some of those bolts will be.

These head bolts are not angle-torque(or stretch-to-yield, aka stretch bolts) like pretty much every head bolt used in modern engines. Because of this it was standard practice to re-torque them after some amount of miles, I think about 30k but could have been 50k.

You'll need a 1/2" tripple-square socket, also called a 12-point but they are apparently different enough to matter.
Since you shouldn't use a torque wrench for loosening bolts, I highly recommend getting 2 of the sockets. One for the breaker bar and one for the torque wrench. I about drove myself crazy swapping that stupid socket back and forth. This added a lot of wasted time to the job.

Back off ONE bolt at least 90* first, then torque it to the spec. We break it loose first to free up the threads for torquing. I would use the OEM first pass bolt pattern since we know some of your bolts are quite loose. Check out @genscripter website for torque specs and pattern.
https://www.nickpisca.com/diesel/turbo/7-3-idi-cylinder-head-head-gasket-and-arp-stud-installation/

I found on my engine the bolts that were closest to the exhaust were dry and crusty and all the other bolts were oily. This drastically changes the clamping force on the head because of the friction in the threads. I should have cleaned the crusty stuff off and chased the threads and added some 30 weight oil to the threads but I didn't, as I was ignorant of that stuff at the time.

Happy wrenching!

 

Dude that's an amazing write up thanks! That's exactly what my bolts look like, dry exhaust side and oily elsewhere. I'm used to working on Chevys and Volvo with torque to yield. Thanks again.

 

Thanks for all your help guys. Pulled the valve cover and retorqued as above. Every bolt save the rear two were at 110ftlbs, those rear two not sure, as a test I had the wrench set at 100 and all the others clicked immediately, the rear two kept turning. I did do the procedure on nicks site FYI, just saying I twisted em all at 100 to see if they were set and the rear two weren't. Maybe when the 3000 mile torque down was done they didn't do the rear two. Who knows. There was a nice dried crust of oil around that area which I hosed and scrubbed with degreaser. No leak