i have a bad oil leak. i heard from a buddy what he thinks it is.

he says that if you dont clean the pool of oil out of the bolt hole on the top of the timing cover when you are re-installing the head or timing cover (anything where you have to remove that damned bolt), the oil in the bottom of the hold will be compressed when you are tightening the bolt and it will be forced through the cast timing cover and make a slight crack right under where that bolt grabs onto the cover.  know what im trying to say? theres only 1 top bolt on the timing cover.  when you take it out, theres oil in the bottom of the bolt hole.  the bolt is being tightened into the hole and it quite literally FORCES the oil through the weakest point in the metal. and then it leaks like a mother*****!!!!!

is this a known problem? i actually investigated by cleaning out the hole and looking in it. i couldnt see anything. duh.
but then i put some water in the hold and pressurized it with some compressed air and watched the water drip out from under that spot, right where i expected it too.

should i just pull the timing cover off and find the crack and repair it? maybe just pick up a new cover.
i have a spare 22re, is the cover the same on that?

  Sounds to me like if you just sealed the threads on that bolt it would stop oil from getting into the hole where it could leak. Maybe some blue loctite or even some pipe thread sealer would do. They are both not affected by oil since they're used to seal many other types of oil leaks in engines and transmissions and many other applications. What could it hurt, right? At least you wouldn't have to take apart the motor to try it or even to find out it didn't work. 
  Good luck!