Yes, dealers and other shops alike use oil dye to trace leaks. But these dyes can only be seen with a black light/ultra violet light.

I don't know if food coloring will mix with oil or not....I've never tried it. And I don't know if it would be very visible either?

I guess we need a guinee pig to try it out?........maybe yellow would work better than red???? Maybe it won't work at all?

we have used at the shop as well very good stuff

What was the resolution to your problem?

I had a major leak on my '95 and it ended up being a leak in timing cover gasket near the oil passageway that goes from block to timing cover... at least that is where I think it was leaking. I also had a minor leak in comparison, actually small seeping of oil from intake, so I did intake, supercharger, and valve cover gaskets and now have zero leaks. All of this was quite a job, by my standards.

I also found out why my engine is so noisy - the balancer shaft. I don't know if it is coincidence or what (age/mileage), but recently my harmonic balancer broke, I got the massive oil leak, and the balancer shaft makes a terrible lot of noise (seems like way too much end-play). This motor has been noisy as ever since I have owned (25k miles, now 130k miles), but not nearly this noisy.

I decided I was not going to pull the motor and dig any deeper...probably just see what happens.

Please don't dig up old threads. Start a new one.