Went back and took a look at the water pump. It can't be from the pump itself because that's lower than the thermostat housing. It's gotta be the thermostat gasket because that joint always has a drop of coolant on the bottom.

 

Picked up thermosta from napa (pn 449-203) and it was identical to the oem one (same stampings and all) accept it had the black gasket like ejw said.

Pulled the old one out and the red gasket ripped apart. It looked just fine but I could rip it apart by hand with little effort. There must be a problem with this rubber composition to be so fragile @ 6 years and 51,000 mi.

Anyway, swapped it in and drove it for 20 mins or so with no leaks. If it holds water for a couple of days I will replace the coolant.

 

could a person put some silicone gasket material on the along with the o ring . I don,t know just thinking about that I haven't seen that housing to see how its set up

 

I wouldn't bother with that because the thermostat is under $20 with tax and isn't a bad item to replace every 5 years or 100,000 miles anyway. It also can be replaced in about 10 mins. On top of that the coolant isn't cheap at $8-12 per diluted gallon depending on where you get it. You loose about 1/2-3/4 of a gallon when pulling that hose off so if your silicone fix doesn't work you wasted the cost of the silicone plus the $5-6 worth of coolant and then you have to go back and do the job again.

I wish I hadn't wasted the time and money on the paper gasket from auto zone but I didn't know any better at the time.

 

I just realized that you may have been talking about doing a new thermostat and silicone. Not necessarily a bad idea but it might make it really hard to get out next time. It would be about right to have a thermostat failure, have to do a roadside repair and have to wrestle with it to get the old one out because it's "glued" in place.

 

Drove all over town this AM and no leaks. I'm calling it fixed! Thanks for the tip on the black gasket thermostat from NAPA. BTW NAPA also had the Zerex G-05 coolant for around $13/gal.

 

You're welcome. Good Luck!