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I was told one of the plastic elbows in the tensioner had a crack in it. I removed them and they are not cracked, but I fount a bit of rummer bulging out from under the intake manifold. I believe that is my leak. I circled it in red.
Looks like RTV in the corners of the LIM runner. Since you have the elbows out, replace them with the aluminum ones instead of plastic. Now you will need to remove the lower intake manifold and replace both runner seals and the main LIM gaskets. Get the good metal framed gaskets.
I put it back together with the aluminum elbows and that part is fine. I do a lot of minor car and small engine stuff for them for parts only. I did this job for $40. I watched a video of the manifold job and it'* more than I want to
do. There is so much stuff to disconnect before you can take off the manifolds. When I was younger I wouldn't hesitate to do it, but I'm getting old and very forgetful.
The car belongs to my neighbors. They are in their 80s and they have no savings and are dirt poor and really can't afford the repair.
Do you think some good stop leak would do any good on this?
I didn't think so either, the leak is totally different from anything I used stop leak for in the past. I found a shop that was reasonable to fix it right.