Been a member for a couple of years, mainly lurk and look for tech help. GF has a 2008 Grand Prix with the NA series III. The car has always seeped a little coolant since I have been working on it. About a year ago I did the water pump and elbows. One of the elbows was cracked so I thought that I had the issue more or less taken care of even though it tended to seep coolant (I did put sealant on the water pump bolts when I installed them). Well two weeks ago it dumped most of the contents of the cooling system out at her work. We got it back to her garage where I could pour coolant in and just watch it p!ss out all over the ground. The elbows are dry and so is the gasket around the water pump. Leak seems to be coming from the timing cover. There is a film of dried up Dexcool at the interface of the cover and block on the top of the engine. There is no coolant in the oil so that made me feel a bit better. I understand that pulling the cover is quite a job and involves quite a bit of parts removal and a couple special tools (HB puller is one that comes to mind) and that I have to prime the oil pump. What I am looking for is if there is write up on the process on the forum somewhere. I did a search but came up empty. I have tried to find a shop manual or at least a YouTube video but also struck out there as well.
Perhaps I am looking in the wrong direction and maybe it is something simpler than the timing cover R&R. if I go in that far I may replace the timing chain as well along with anything else that may cause future issues (looking for advice on this point). Car has 198K miles on it but has always started, shifted and driven very well.
I can do the timing cover gaskets over the holiday break but I am not looking forward to wrenching in the cold unless I am certain this is the real issue.
Any advice, comments, questions are welcome.
Erik