Well, I appear to be getting a little closer to finding the source of the coolant leak that’s been causing my X to pee all over the Garage floor. The puddles have been showing up near the back of the engine. They appeared to be a little more right of center, but that may have been skewed due to drips hitting the skid plate, and finding a way out from there. I was really hoping that it might have been a hose failure around the back/rear of the engine, but no dice. I pulled apart the cabin filter shrouding (three times), and poked around with a light and a mirror. Hoses in good shape, and drier than a popcorn fart.

Another interesting thing, it takes the leak hours to show up. I had been backing off the cap on the coolant reservoir, trying to relieve pressure, and minimize the coolant lost, but this didn’t seem to make much difference. I would look under the rig 3-5-8 hours after parking it… nothing. Next day, a good sized puddle appears (+/- 1/3 cup).

Yesterday, I jacked it up and slid under and found (sort of) the smoking gun. Yellowish green coolant dripping from the bottom of the Bell housing. It almost looks as though it’s coming from inside the housing itself. So, the question is: is this an obvious Valley Pan failure, or potentially something else?

I’m planning on going the DIY routine on this. I’ve read TwinTurboGTR's write up on the VP gasket and Valve cover gaskets several times (great job!). My Valve covers are not in too bad of shape, so I think I just want to address the Valley Pan right now. Is it out of the question to re-use the EGR Valve and Oil Separator, or is foolish place to save some money?

BTW it’s an ’02 4.4l w/112Km (70k Miles). I know many of you will suggest doing the water pump at this point, but I’m not really prepared to do it at this time.

So, if I were to re-use most hoses etc. the bare bones parts list looks like:

• Valley pan/cover
• O-rings (4)
• Intake Man. To Throttle housing gasket
• Intake Man. To Cylinder head gasket (4)
• Water accumulator gasket

Let me know if I’m missing anything, or if you feel strongly that I should rethink re-using some of the parts that I mentioned. Also, the coolant currently in the system is yellow/green, the BMW stuff is more blue in color, are they going to play nice together?

Thanks.

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Current Rides:
2002 X5 4.4i (04/02 Build)
2004 M3 Conv.
2005 Suzuki V-Strom 650