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I finally found the small coolant leak on the Conti, the head gasket is leaking to the outside at the rear of the cylinder head. I have no evidence its leaking into the combustion chamber and I'm not getting any slime in the coolant bottle that makes me think it goes the other way. I do not want to remove the cylinder head because I know that will snowball into a lot more time and money than I want to put out just now.

All that said, have any of you folks used head gasket sealer in a magic bottle to fix this kind of problem? Its not a gusher, I just get a drip every few seconds.

ahhh! I had the same thing and yes it snowballed into what your seeing me do now. plus a worn thrust bearing making the crank walk. it was on the right rear of the head and after pulling the head and gasket I found the gasket was just old and not sealing anymore. you could try re torquing the head? I would do that first before adding gunk. gunk goes everywhere! Have fun! -Paul

yep, right rear corner. Guessing thats a thin area between a coolant passage and the outside.

I can try re-torquing the head but not exactly sure what to torque them to. Manual gives a torque, wait 15 mins, another torque, run 15 minutes, then 90 degrees. I guess I can just make sure they are at least at the torque number.

If I do give in and just re-gasket the thing, where did you get the replacement gasket?

you can get a stock head gasket through pelican parts or ECS tuning. I got my MLS from gasketstogo.com I would try like 75 ft lbs at least?

went lazy, dumped in a bottle of Bar's Leaks block sealer. Its basically sodium silicate with copper glitter in it. Leak stopped almost immediately so I'll see how this goes. Given how not major it was and where it was leaking I have high hopes for this.

So far it seems to be holding. i gave the engine a good cleaning with one of those Harbor Freight engine cleaner guns and I haven't seen any fresh coolant at the back of the head. At some point I'll have to deal with it properly but right now thats just not in the cards.

I hear ya. mechanic in a can is a fortune 500 company. I think the previous owner of my car did the same thing. the coolant seemed to have some weirdness to it. Im a big fan of pressure washing engine bays, even more when it has years of sooty diesel oil in it. -Paul

I washed it when I got the car but I didn't have anything that would really fit into the exhaust side area so it stayed kind of nasty. That HF wand thing is a lot smaller than my pressure washer so it fits more places.