1zz coolant leak - intake side of engine

You can definitely fully disconnect the intake manifold with the engine the car. However, I'm not sure if you could remove it from the engine bay with removing the cylinder head. What I mean is, I was able to disconnect and free up the intake manifold and shift it around a bit but I couldn't figure out how to remove it without having a fun time with all the hoses on the driver's side of the engine. I think you might have enough shifting room to access the elbow though. 

In the pic you can see what i mean. The intake is pretty well in there, even if you free it up. Other things worth checking are the coolant lines feeding into the throttle body and the gasket behind the service plate on the throttle body. If you open the service plate, please please replace the phillips head screws with machine head screws. Might as well replace the thermostat gasket too and any hoses you come in contact with that seem old.

With a combination of reaching up from below the car and above with wrenches, should be able to disconnect it no problem. Some guy on spyderchat recommended removing the battery and piping on drivers side to finesse it out that way.

@ria

Thanks Ria, I looked over your thread as encouragement to get after my 2ZZ car with a blown head gasket - didn't think head removal was possible in car. (but that will be another thread) 

I did take a pic and inspected the area under the Tbody when looking for the leak.  It may be one of the cleanest parts of my car - no signs of leaks.

As you noted - then deleted?   - I don't need to remove the intake. just get it out of the way.  Did you remove the bolts in the front and rear of the engine mounts to get more play with moving/rotating the engine to get better access to the intake?  That is my plan.

I replaced the Tstat and gasket when I put the JDM engine in, as well as the hose off of it - seen with drips on it in the second picture above.

The shot of the underside of the Tbody is below

Thanks again for the insight

@rdawg

I didn't have to rotate the engine or remove any mount bolts to remove the intake manifold. I just made sure it wasn't pulling on anything then used a little force to get it over the two studs it remains racked on, coming off of the cylinder head. However, I could see rotating the engine a little being necessary for getting clearance to completely remove it from the engine bay. I read a thread on the other site where someone said if you remove the intake piping and the battery, and remove two mount bolts and slightly rotate the engine, that you can remove the intake manifold in the car. Also, someone informed me that the plastic thermostat housing our car has can sometimes crack and cause a large leak, that could potentially run down that hose. Apparently corollas have a metal one so you could source one of those if that is the case to prevent it from happening again.

I also think its possible also by rotating the engine or moving the engine away from the firewall. I was helping a local with a clutch job last month  and noticed there should be enough wiggle room if you remove the bolts from all three mounts and support the transmission as you move the engine slightly away from the firewall. You will also have to disconnect the header from the down pipe. 

I would check to see that the leak isn't from you water pump.  Could be the pump shaft, the pump weep hole or the front cover mounting face.

Thanks for the input everyone.

I will check the water pump and T-Stat housing, pretty sure H2O pump side is clean (Only because I have also been messing with nonfunctional A/C and would have noticed if water was coming from there.  T-Stat housing was metal on the JDM Engine and I swapped in a new T-Stat and hose with the JDM, but will double check.

Thanks for the tip on the down pipe Dev, I surely would not have done that - I hope I can just loosen it, as it was a bear to get started - threads on those bolts were not really solid. And given the input here - I guess I don't have to take the intake out of the car - hopefully I just need access to the leak - which I hope is the capped elbow in the first picture (never thought I would say I hope that is leaking).

I will grab a  few pics and report back this weekend - I hope to get the car in the garage tonight and start tearing apart. Staying at home - so should have time.

Thanks again to everyone.

OK - so good news bad news.

I found the leak - as I feared so long ago  when I started this post - it was the cap that I had placed on the non-functional tube from the 1zz Swap. The one in the green oval from the original post - to the top....

After a great deal of procrastination, I have completed the repair...though I wont go into the details as I am a little embarrassed about the route I took.

Suffice to say - the cap was from  NAPA bypass caps package, and though I know it gets hot next to the engine - it is on the intake side and I was surprised to see this failure after only 16 months of use.  I suppose it could be a combination of temp and pressure cycling.

Short answer is the car is back running, but I haven't had it running long enough to bleed the coolant system and check the leak.

Just happy to have it running - but not like it should, do to a problem related to my repair, but not the same system - so I will start a new thread.

lesson learned, and I will use a different method to cap stray pipes - but this one was the type of issue that makes me wonder why I 'enjoy' working on cars

Hope all are well, thanks for the support and input on this leak - hope the sun is out where you are so you can enjoy your spyder.

Stay safe 

Rdawg