Ever since I bought my 2000 Ram 1500 three years ago, I have always noticed that my antifreeze in theoverflow bottle would slowly disappear. Usually about a half a quart every month or so. I never could find the source of the leak and never could see an antifreeze stain on any part of the block. Well today I decided it was time to replace the plenum gasket since it had a leak. Durning disassembly I found that the rear most bolt on the driver's side of the intakehad broken about a half inch down inside the hole. The bolt headwas just sitting in the hole. It looked fine until I went to remove it and it just came off in my hand. The moral to this story (if there is one) is this: If you have a leak and cannot find it, try checking the intake bolts at the very rear and see if they have broken in two and are just sitting in the holes. Just thought I would pass that along. I am sure that I am not the first to have had this problem....

 

i'm assuming the backside of my intake mani is leaking coolant as well, when the engine is hot, it runs down the backside of the engine, down to the bellhousing then drips off right onto the hot crossover pipe...so never any puddles, just noticed it last week when putting in my trans temp sender. i probably lose about 1 qt of coolant every 1500 miles, exactly the same amount of oil that is consumed by the leaking plenum every 1500 miles [:@]....soon enough i'm tearing the engine down to replace leaking gaskets, water pump, timing chain, and upgrade head gaskets