Oil leak

I think I found the oil leak. Had to pause due to a storm but will be doing the passenger side later tonight/tomorrow as well as replacing the O rings on the oil cooler. Hopefully that fixes the issue!

 

Those engines are notorious for blowing head gaskets. Hope that fixes it

 

Valve cover leaks are common on 2nd gens. They luckily have nothing to do with the head gaskets. While you have the covers off, change your PCV valve.

 

The rear cap plugs that "seal up" the ends of the CAM's are steel (I think) with rubberized overmolded surfaces on them. While your at it I would remove the back CAM bearing caps and clean this up really well with carb cleaner and reseal the bearing caps to the heads with 515 Loctite Gasket maker. But before you set them back on the heads apply liberal amounts of Permatex Right-Stuff gasket maker to the outside diameter of these cap plugs and then set them in the heads being sure to not clog up the oil return port in the head. Then set the bearing caps onto the cams, caps and heads. This will allow the Right-Stuff to squirt out as you draw the bearing cap down with the 4 machine screws that set the cam bearing in place. The valve covers are molded plastic composite and are awful. The silicone gaskets seem better than the black rubber ones and I have tired Halomar in the groove and on the heads surface to aid with allowing the gasket to move around but maintain a seal. I used Right-Stuff at the sharp corners were the gasket travels over the cam and there is a 90° turn in the gaskets direction over the bearing caps. The front of the covers have to go under the shrouding and the ruddy gasket can fall out of the cover and not set correctly on the bearing cap and head surfaces so be aware of that as it is hard to see if its still in place.

I drilled my engines heads to create a drain hole for the oil near the lower edge where the valve cover gasket is close to those small ponds of oil that never go away.