Well I've only seen one with a head gasket leak right there and they guy ended up buying the work, Once the head came off the tech found corrosion on the block that caused the leak, So it turned into a used engine going in, These engines according to Toyota cannot be machined or the timing chain will not line up correctly. (possible aftermarket head gaskets can be had thicker to account for it, but i don't know, Not available from Toyota.)

If its a small leak and you keep an eye on it i wouldn't worry about it, Just clean up around that area and watch it, It'll get worse over time but you can get time out of it.

 

Hi TstrickNH, I had the same leak on my Avalon. I actually just did all the work myself this April. This is a very big job. I sent my head out to a machine shop and they told me that they barely had to mill it. I threw on the new gasket and I'm happy that I don't have to worry about the problem anymore. The parts were not very expensive either. I think I spent around $600 for the parts including the milling. The job is very expensive but, I'm sure you can find a mechanic to do it for allot cheaper by shopping around. Good Luck

 

I would keep an eye on it - check the oil and coolant for the "milkshake" if I was in your shoes. If the milkshake developed, I would do the job myself.

 

What you have here is SEEPAGE. Not a Blown gasket and you have some options. I did a gasket change for seepage but that was a 5 year old car. I did it on a 95-98 GM 3.1 6 cyl engine. All because of a general seepage with no bad effects. The car had 110k on it with a Iron Block and Alum heads. All it needed and got was new gaskets and screamed on to 290k + with a virgin AC System!

At 225 i threw in some block seal because i started to notice some more seepage. These engine had Bad intake gaskets from the factory which got changed under 20k and the rumor was there was a torque problem at the factory on these blacks that caused the seepage and failure. Others blamed an iron block and alum head match up.

Side note: The 2001 + All Alum 3.5 GM motor was good about keeping sealed. Not sure why we cant treat an all alum motor to stay free on corrosion at the head gasket for 20 years.

IMO I would leave it as is and at the most PROPERLY install a block seal and be careful not to plug the heater core. The safe and easy thing to do would be to find out if the motor can handle the GM Seal tabs made of ginger root and something. Just throw in the rad when you see seepage and forget about it. It shouldn't harm anything and is a mild gasket sealer.

 

Yeah, those 3.1/3.8 intake gaskets are horrible. Makes you think it's a BHG when it isn't.

OP, I'll second the GM seal tablets - IIRC they're just reboxed Bar's Stop Leak tablets. They used to spec them on coolant changes with the Northstar due to casting porosity issues. You shouldn't have any issues using them on these engines, the Northstars were aluminum as well.