Thread: Coolant leak from Timing Chain Cover??

Sorry for the major delay, but today I was able to test drive the repair and nothing leaked .

I think if I had put silicone on those long bolts when I replaced the water pump last year I would not have had to do this. But the replacement procedure I was following did not reference any silicone. I think what happened was the bolt got compromised for lack of silicone, than the blowout from the bolt compromised the gasket beside where the bolt passed. It did not appear funny looking when I removed it, but after applying silicone to the bolts I still had a major river pouring out of the area circled where the gasket got compromised between the coolant passage.

I had a few delays during this repair, as is obvious by the date of this response, that cost me time. I do not have a regular shop, just an attached garage to the house and the basics as far as tools. Luckily I have two more vehicles than I need so I can let a repair take a while without putting someone out of a vehicle.
The first delay was not having a good way to hold the flywheel like the service procedures show with that special tool, I used some steel I had to make a tool to hold the harmonic balancer. The 1/2 inch drive socket extension I had borrowed was flexing so bad trying to remove that harmonic balancer bolt I went down to harbor freight and got a 3/4 inch drive set so as not to risk breaking my neighbors long 1/2 inch extension. That and the tool I made got the harmonic balancer off. That was three weekends of time as one of those was good warm weather and I played golf rather than work on the car
I got the timing cover off and the next step that hung me up a bit was trying to drop the oil pan as the service procedure described. First off there is a bracket that bolts to the engine and transmission that blocks access to one of the oil pan bolts. Getting this bracket loosened enough to loosen the oil pan bolt underneath it was a major pain in the arse. I had to borrow an air compressor and a air ratchet in order to get two of the five bolts holding this bracket loose. I did get the bracket bolts out, but the bracket still could not be removed, just moved just enough to barely get the last oil pan bolt loosened. I loosened all the oil pan bolts intending to drop it a bit as the service procedure stated. In order to drop the pan the engine must be supported from above as the motor mounts are under the oil pan on each side, that I did not accomplish. I ended up saying screw that as I did not want to waste another day trying to fabricate a motor support tool in order to raise/hold the motor. I just RTVed the bottom of the cover and replaced it with the new gasket against the block.
I did change the timing chain and sprockets as they were fairly cheap, but when I pulled the old ones out there was no discernible wear even after 251,000 miles.

I do think I need to find a scan tool that will allow me to initiate the relearn procedure for replacing the crankshaft position sensor, but the car runs great and exhibits no issues or engine lights after a couple short test drives. My auto tap tool does not let me initiate a relearn procedure. Is there a way I can get the computer to do the relearn procedure by doing a certain driving scenario, or will I need to get access to a scan tool to initiate the relearn for changing the crankshaft position sensor?

I appreciate the help on this from the forum, I am sorry I did not post more during the repair but RL and computer issues had me down for most of the time, thanks in advance for any help again.