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I made an alarming discovery today when pulling my headers to replace a perceived exhaust gasket leak. On the passenger side head in the back corner i noticed a small pool of orange coolant where the corner of the gasket sticks out and has that little circle rivet.
I just replaced the (706?) heads with 862s about 10k ago due to the castech cracking issue. 862s were reman but checked out OK by a reputable auto machine shop in town 706s were also confirmed cracked) Head gaskets are Mahle MLS all bolts are new GM TTY all torque sequences and steps were followed to a tee. Wondering if this could be coming from somewhere else and just collecting here or if I should try tightening the bolts? Thoughts?
Have not noticed a coolant loss btw i have a small pencil mark on my expansion tank which seems to indicate no coolant loss
Looks like the freeze plug on back of the head. See attached pic. What would be the culprit of this and is there any way to fix/repair it without removing the head. Using dex cool 5050 from the jug by the way only about a year or so old.
I think I would use a GM sealant tablet since it's such a slow leak. It can't hurt.
Thanks for the input. Ok, I am not familiar with this product. Could you elaborate please. Is this something I should have done upon first installing the heads
Why not replace the plug while the engine is in the truck? It doesn't take that long to pull the fender off, Replace the plug and put the fender back on. You might even get away with just pulling the inner fender.
Im not sure pulling fender / inner fender would help gain any real estate
Yeah, I edited my post right away, for some reason I was thinking block and not heads, I just did a SBC that way.
Ok no worries open to all suggestions here. What are these tablets and how is the success rate. Is it true gm adds them from the factory. I hear dealer service likes them as well. Thoughts?
Bars leak works well but I always worry about plugging up the radiator or heater core. I've used it a couple times for minor leaks and it worked and never saw any long term damage to anything.
Ok no worries open to all suggestions here. What are these tablets and how is the success rate. Is it true gm adds them from the factory. I hear dealer service likes them as well. Thoughts?
I heard that too. I would try it. I doubt it is as invasive as Bars Leaks. It seems to work for GM with no ill effects.
The GM tablets are GINGER. Yes you heard that right: as in, the spice. No they do not add them at the factory, at least not any that I've seen. They are a way for dealers to get hoopties off of their nice clean concrete bay floors so they don't contaminate NEW cars with their grease-dripping, filthy hulks.
Sorry, I'm not a fan. It's a hack job as far as I'm concerned. Not a fan of ANY of those "leak fix in a can" type of things. They're all NASTY.
Not necessarily; sometimes the leak corrodes up and seals itself, if it's a good new plug as in this case, and the underlying problem is that the casting got scratched removing the previous one or something like that.
The ones that are GUARANTEED to get worse though, are the ones that rust through in the middle. Those will pretty much NEVER self-heal.
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Possible head gasket leak 
Those will pretty much NEVER self-heal.