[nolife]

I've noticed some coolant drops forming on the bellhousing of the transmission and a few times noticed a small pool on top of the water pump on the drivers side of the distributor. The coolant in the back may be from a heater hose but could it be the of the lower manifold gasket? Its not a big leak and I only loose an inch or so low every couple hundred miles. Every other seal and gasket seems to leak from the boost so why not the manifold gasket as well.

[ujslost]

sounds like that could be whats happening

[fox bodies rule]

May I suggest that you invest in a cooling system pressure tester for caps, radiators and cooling systmes? You can even rent them at your local auto supply house of choice. Then pull the thermostat, clean up all traces of coolant, pressurize the system and watch for leaks. You will be able to see where they are coming from without having to wonder if the fan is blowing coolant around or any other influences that might send you chasing the problem. The only thing you might not catch would be a leak caused by the manifold heating up and "pulling away" from the head. In this case, clean everything up really well and let it idle with the thermostat in and the cap on until it gets up to operating temperature at which time you need to play detective and look for the source of your leak. There are ways of checking a hot engine for leaks using an external pressure source but it doesn't sound like you need to go there because your leak is big enough to find. I would make darn sure that it is my intake manifold leaking before I started tearing things apart and then finding out later that it wasn't the gasket after all. You could have multiple problems such as the EGR cooling hoses and the water pump leaking on a high mileage car for instance. I would agree that it certainly sounds like it could be your gasket, but a little effort spent trouble shooting could save a lot of frustration if you don't get it right the first go round.