Case solved

It took several more days of investigation and another couple gallons of coolant but I was able to pinpoint the issue.  The leak was not always present so it involved frequently squeezing myself under the car with a flashlight a couple times a day.  It looks like the water pump seals were on the way out and hemorrhaging coolant from the weep hole when the seal was not doing it’s job.

Couple shots from under the car showing how bad it could sometimes be.

Oil Pan Underside of the front cover Water pump leak

So I drained all the coolant out and yanked the pump.  Here you can see the wet spot under the impeller pulley where the coolant was coming out.

Water pump leak

 

A side by side of the pumps.  All nice and shiny now.  That probably won’t last for long.  I considered putting in a 160* thermostat to run the engine cooler but decided to stick with a new stock 187* one for now.

Water pump comparison

 

I also picked up a flush kit and connected it to the water hose and one of the heater hoses since I have not had heat in this car since I bought it.  Not worrying about that sooner came back to bite me last week when we had all that rain and cold making it so I couldn’t defrost my windshield and could barely see to drive home some nights.  There was quite a bit of brown gunk and rust that came out of the heater core.  I was also able to see it built up inside the hoses.  Looks to be old Dex-Cool build up from when the previous owner went to running straight water and eventually green without flushing the system first causing the Dex-Cool to gel up when mixed with other coolants.  The core and hoses need replacing but that was not in the books for today but on the books for the future.  At least now I have heat and will be able to defrost when needed.  Also took the opportunity to ditch those damned spring clamps and replace them with worm clamps.  That will cut a decent amount of time and cursing off the project if I need to take the pump off again.

 

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