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I feel like the little Dutch boy, plugging leaks. Since I started my LT1, I've had numerous anti-freeze leaks, lots of brake line leaks and a few tranny line leaks. I had to re-flare one brake line and now I think I have those all fixed. The tranny lines are leaking at the transmission. I bought reproduction lines from a place called Inline Tube and the flares look OK on them. I tried taking out the brass fittings on the tranny itself but they wouldn't budge and I don't want to screw them up. Next step is to take those lines back out and re-flare them.
This latest anti-freeze leak is a mystery to me. I can see it is leaking at the temp sensor fitting and I'll get that fixed. You can see in the pic it is also leaking behind that, right in front of the distributor. There is a small hole at the very back of the water pump and it appears to be coming from there. Do I need to take the water pump off in order to resolve this? I can certainly do that, I just have to take AC condenser, radiator and fans out.
Other than that the engine runs fantastic. Had one plug mis-firing but all I needed to do was seat the boot properly.
Ah, with a little research I find that it's normal for a few drops to come out of the weep hole. Think I'll seal up the temp sensor leak and let her go for now. The other thing that seemed amiss was the upper hose yesterday seemed to get quite pressurized. Will fill er up and try again after fixing the sensor leak.
Upon further consideration, I ordered a new AC Delco pump. I guess even a little seepage indicates the pump is starting to fail. I may drill and tap the weep hole to allow me to run a hose away from the opti in case the new one ever does leak.
It's the same concept as any SBC water pump. once you start getting full drops out of the weep hole, its time to replace. it'll only get worse, and it usually gets worse fast. Then you have a ruined distributor. Definitely go on and change it.