So I now have everything scrapped and cleaned up ready to begin re-installation. But I hate to waste time and not be sure I will be fixing it. So I started trouble shooting. I added water to the coolant passage on the side of the head with the leaking bolt hole.

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Sure enough water came out of the hole. This confirms for me that fixing the LIM alone will not complete the job. So head gasket here we come.

 

The_Maniac you were right about bolt going into the water jacket. I pulled the head and now wish I had not done any of this work lol. There does not seem to be anything wrong with the head gasket. IMG_20130510_044606_682_zpsdf73b28e.jpg

The entire circled area seems to be the water jacket. I could not get a good angle to get a picture showing it. The bolt hole with drips is leaking hole.

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So from the looks of everything I have to replace the head gasket since I pulled it. For the bolt hole I guess I will just put some RTV in the hole and on the bolt before re-installing. I do not know how this could have developed a leak since it has been 50,000 miles since that bolt had even been touched. Since (to me at least) the head gasket looked good I am just going to replace the rear and not touch the front head.

If anyone has a better idea what to do about my leaking bolt hole let me know.

 

SInce you are this far into it and the head gaskets are sold in pairs, you may want to just do the front head because.

Regardless.... Am I following this correcty that that the bolt hole is going all the way through to the water jacket? If so, you may want to consider replacing the head. If not, you might be able to use a sealant on the threads of that bolt (like teflon tape or something else plumbers would use on a pipe fitting) to resolve that issue. Of course that means you need to be aware of that situation for any future service that you or someone else does on that bolt.

Outside of that, I am not certain of any other remedy that will be tolerant of the hot coolant passing through. I presonally lean on get a replacement head. Again.... pending that I am folloing this correctly that the hole goes all the way through.

 

I ended up just buying the one head gasket. A friend had a set of head bolts that he had only done the front head on so I got those for the rear off of him. I fixed the leak in the head by applying a small amount of hi-temp silicon in the hole and running the bolt all the way in with out anything attached. I did this twice until I could just feel a little extra resistance like it was starting to bottom out with the silicon added. When I put the bracket back on I coated about an inch of the threads with the same silicon before putting the bolt in. After buttoning everything back up I have now gone 1500 miles with no leaks. So I will call this a success. Just wanted to give a final update in case anyone runs into something similar in the future. If I saw this again I would try just doing the silicon in the bolt hole without changing gaskets.