Parked on a nice clean driveway overnight and left a 10 cm puddle of auto transmission fluid behind in the morning. Had a look, found smoke coming off the front exhaust manifold from a rocker cover gasket leak, and a missing nut and stud on the front exhaust manifold on the gearbox end. Fixed that (new gasket, missing nut/stud can stay that way) and went back to looking for a gearbox leak. Hoses from the cooler were leaking, puddles of oil around them where they attach to the gearbox. A degrease and tightening of the clamps, now staying dry. BUT its still leaking, from underneath, behind the starter motor. Any ideas what the source of this leak might be, anything that might benefit from being tightened? If its a gearbox out job, I may just go and buy a drip tray, put kitty litter in it, and park the car in the same place every night. lol Not fair on other people's driveways though.:eek2:

Behind the starter motor? Give it a good degrease and run the motor for a bit, strange........
Have a nice DOHC motor here which are leak free at this old age if your keen :D

It's auto trans fluid though. DOHC motor would be nice, but won't fix a leaking autobox. lol Probably coming from the torque converter to pump seal. *sigh* Drip, drip . . . . Gotta find a drip tray tomorrow. Anyone got a cheap, new, still-in-the-box auto gearbox for a TS 3.0L? lol

Degrease and another look-see tomorrow.

Nice shiny drip tray. Really good at catching drips! lol Turned out to be engine oil. Rear rocker cover leaking, running down the back of the engine and side, ends up on the starter motor would you believe. its a PITA trying to keep the new rocker gasket in place while putting the cover on. Some sort of gasket glue needed next time I think!

Nope, not rocker cover gasket. Done the gasket twice now, last time with a new gasket, still leaking. Puttering around town, at 50 and 60 KPH, there is no leak. At higher speed, the leak starts up. I'm guessing its the head gasket, front or rear, and I want to pull the exhaust system off the heads so I can see if there is a leak at the head/block junction. Oil is dribbling down the gearbox end, and getting on the starter motor. Retorque the heads would be a good idea too, but the head bolts have an internal hex design. Anyone know the correct hex size, and where I can get a socket with hex attachment?

Answer = 10 mm hex. Thanks for your input, Max. lol

I cut the angle bit off a 10 mm allen key and glued the straight bit into a 10 mm socket. Works well.

If is a second gen v6 could also be the end cap seals in the end of the heads, these are well known to leak badly and may cause your issue. Starter is at the front on the v6 but could have oil runing down there as well and causing this

No leaks there, first thing I checked. The valley of the engine has oil puddles in it, but the joint between the rocker cover and heads is clean, so I assume its one or both head gaskets. Front head has to come off anyway as the previous owner snapped off both studs for the number 5 exhaust port. Good opportunity to check bore wear and get valves seats recut and heads planed and tested.