I just returned from a round trip of about 350 miles from DE.  I thought I
smelled coolant at one point during the trip but I chalked it up as my
imagination. I turns out, I wasn't off the mark. (Unrelated-? I've smelt
that infamous maple syrup smell too. )

I tracked down a leak of coolant.  It seems to be oozing out of my passenger
side front, top head bolt.  This scares the heck out of me after hearing so
much about "waterleakers".  I'm coming from a diesel background with VW's.
I'm really hoping I didn't buy myself into a money hole..  I just finished
putting in a "new" transaxle, new exhaust system, and many other little
things.  All said and done, I've spent about $3k on this guy so far.  It's
in wonderful shape.

Should be just a coincidence, but I also just changed and flushed the
cooling system.  I put in an orage prestone extended life product in a grey
bottle.  (I think it was prestone.  It came recommended by someone on this
list).  While I had the system drained, I removed a section of the hard
return line and replaced it with a couple of soft peices from NAPA.  I did
this all at the same time as the exhaust.  I really don't think I disturbed
anything while doing this work.  I didn't take a hammer to it or anything
"crazy" like that.

To the best of my knowledge, this is a brand new problem for my relatively
"new to me" vanagon-

So tell me,  what the easiest fix for this?  Is this a coolant leak that is
common?  I hope you give me a nice easy solution.

Thanks in advance, say a prayer for me,
Bradley Flubacher
State College, PA