Drip Dip

Will it ever end? Got correct water pump, got it installed, the water pipe back in, the starter fits too! Filled the water up and on the final liter, there it was, the drip.  I feel around & try to get a look, it seems it is not the water pump. There is the water outlet just above it, and it looks like the leakage is seeping from the bottom of that. I pull off the fitting and look at the gasket. It’s not actually a problem with the gasket, but the aluminum on the head has erroded away enough at the bottom edge that it looks like the gasket doesn’t have enough flat surface to seal correctly. The one downfall of the Toyota OEM coated metal gaskets. I can either go with an aftermarket fiber gasket, or try get another Toyota gasket and use some RTV on it. I’m torn, I much prefer the Toyota gaskets. To really fix this problem I should take the head back to the machine shop and have them weld and machine the surface, but that would be a hell of a lot of work to do over. Yuck. Time to sleep.