Noticed I am loosing coolant, looked around and saw some laying on the block on the passenger side between the head and the serpentine belt.

The location is pretty much directly behind the tensioner on the block lower than the head gasket, far away from the pump or any other "plumbing" I could see.

My fear is it's the forward head gasket. Can anyone offer another suggestion that would be less involved fixing?

If it is the head gasket how tough a job is it? Done head gaskets before mostly on 4 cylinder motors.

Oh, van has about 130k miles

 

probably the Intake plenum gasket.

 

Thanks for the reply

Well that sounds better. Besides inspection (just looking at it) any way to tell for sure?

Hard job for a well equipped backyard mechanic?

 

Block testers are relatively cheap.

It's the same as i4, just hard to reach on the back bank unless you remove the engine(a nightmare on minivans). Head gaskets are easy and not that financially expensive to do on your own, unless you take the head to a machine shop..

I've done them over a few sunny 5 hour says without the machine work. It's best to have it surface checked though and that's where it gets pretty expensive..