Valve cover leak

[74se]

I have a coolant leak coming from the valve cover middle bolt. I guess tapped to deep from the factory? Has anyone had this problem? And what did you do to fix it? It drips on the exhaust manifold.

[DynoDave]

I have never seen that.

Small block? Big block?

[Jer]

About a billion years ago, more or less, I decided--in my infinite wisdom--to stop the driver's side valve cover leak on the 440 in my original "Shadowfax" (the black & white car in the black and white pic in my signature below, taken circa 1972-ish).

I cranked on the middle bolt, and of course snapped the head off...no problem right?  I began to drill into the "dutchman" nubbin of a remnant of that little bitty bolt--prepping it for the Easy-Out, don't ya know--and I swear the water jacket was 1/32nd of an inch below the bottom of the bolt, because "swoosh", Niagara Falls come roaring out of the bolthole.

How did I fix it?  Took the head off and took it down to have it Heli-Arced (I think the process is called something different now).

Needless to say, I now torque NOTHING beyond factory torque specs....that beauty was down for 3 weeks, which really cut into my nightlife !!

Seriously, I don't know if that is indicative of what happened to yours, but if the amount of ''meat'' between the bottom of your bolthole and the coolant is as sparse as mine was, it wouldn't surprise me if poor maintenance (or whatever) ate that little bit of metal up.

My sympathies, brother....twas not fun, and was made worse by me having no one to blame but myself....had I changed the valve cover gasket like I should have, I wouldn't have missed even one night of cruising Broadway.

Best of luck, let us know what you find out, and how it all works out....maybe a quick fix would be a boatload of thread sealant on the bolt, like one has to do for some head bolts on certain types of motors, compressors, and whatnot.
Jer.

[74se]

Small block, Dave.

[1ol74charger4me]

Drain the radiator or just enough to get below the valve cover. Pull out the bolt, blow out the hole with some compressed air, check the threads on the bolt to see if intact, put some hi temp silicone on the bolt and put it back in. I still like to use Permatex but I'm a dinosaur. It's not the only bolt you have going into a water jacket. It may also be a crack, that another problem.

[74se]

So far the silicone sealer on the bolt seems to be working. Thanks.