alright so after a few months from the time i got the timing belt and the other stuff that goes with it replaced i noticed this leak, what is the cause of this the mechanic that did the work said its normal and that they all do this but i think otherwise as it never did this before.

Is there a gasket or something that was supposed to go there as it looks like he just put some RTV in there, would putting some RTV over top of it fix the problem until the next time the timing belt is changed?

I walked out to my 300k mike v8 and it appears I only have RTV in that area. If you really wanted to you could clean it up and hoop on some RTV but I would honestly fix it correctly.






On a side note I have what appears to be a temp sensor that is unplugged. Do you mind walking out to your rig and snapping a pic for me to see if it is connected to anything?




Located between the intake manifold cover and the tube that feeds the intake.



It’s a bit out of focus sorry.



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Thanks i will probably just take it off and put new RTV in there and im not quite sure if i took a pic of the right thing but all looks very similar to yours. [IMG][/IMG]

My V8 has a slight leak in the same area, it's about time to redo the timing belt so I'm not going to repair the leak until I do the timing belt.

To answer your question there is no gasket to my knowledge for that area and only has RTV to seal it and unfortunately it needs to be taken apart and cleaned up and resealed IMHO, your leak is WAY worst than mine and mine has close to 90,000 miles since the timing belt was last done, your mechanic is wrong, there shouldn't be a leak there IF you use the correct RTV AND know how to use RTV, first and foremost RTV is silicone, RTV is the acronym for Room Temperature Vulcanizing, so RTV is a silicone that vulcanizes at room temperature, vulcanization is when rubber, in this case silicone rubber cures to it's final form, so when using RTV as a gasket it's important to use the correct RTV for the application, meaning it has to be able to resist any fluids is comes in contact with, in your case that would be the antifreeze, and when using RTV except with a very few types of RTV it has to cure before putting it into service, i.e. in contact with fluids and or pressure.

My best guess is that your mechanic could of possibly use the wrong type of RTV that resists antifreeze and or he started the engine before the RTV was cured and the pressure in the cooling system flushed out some of the RTV, which by the way most all RTVs/silicone takes around 24 hours to cure.

Here's a couple of links to video done by Permatex on which RTV to select and the use of their RTV products, and another video with other helpful tips.

RTV selection
YouTube

RTV how to use, the one thing here is..IMHO they show way too much RTV sealant being applied, about 1/3 of what they used would be all that's needed if you don't wipe some off trying to seat the part to it's mating surface.
YouTube

Now in the video linked below this guy shows how to be careful when mating up the two surfaces to avoid smearing the RTV in such a way it doesn't seal properly.
YouTube

thanks this helps a great deal, i'm probably going to clean it up and reseal it this week properly.

Just be sure not to add the coolant until the RTV has cured over night and you should be good and make sure you use a RTV rated for water pumps/coolant!