After getting home the other day I noticed a pool of coolant under my 85 transam. Looking into the problem I discovered the leak is apparently coming from under the passenger side ( viewing from front of block ) valve cover & the intake manifold. Any ideas about this please! Intake gasket the cause?

 

Verify its not the fitting for the heater core.

If its not leaking from a fitting/thermostat, intake gaskets

 

I had coolant come down a similar passage. Turns out(after I did the water pump) that it was the thermostat housing. Check around the thermostat for signs of evaporated coolant.

 

You can actually see the coolant leaking from just under the valve cover, a fine stream with air bubbles under pressure.

 

gaskets, have fun. I just redid mine this week, POS aftermarket thermostat housing...

 

How easy a job is this? Any tips or things I need to look out for? Do I need to lift the distributor out to do the gaskets?

 

Anyone?

 

To replace intake manifold gaskets, yes dis comes out.

 

Drain the coolent out of the system, and then remove the distributor, top radiator hose, heater hose, and then unbolt the intake and see what else gets in your way of taking it off. You should beable to leave the carb on, but if not its not hard to get off and back on.

With the intake off, make sure you have some RTV there and put some around the coolent passeges on the front and the back of the heads, on both sides of the gaskets. Not a lot, just a tiny bead. Also dont forget to put in the gaskets that seal off the lifter vally to the intake on the front and back of the block, or just lay some thick RTV beads and run those up to the coolent passenges.

Hope that helps. There are 100 differnt ways to go about replacing those gaskets, but that way has always worked for me.