Welcome to the M42club! Sorry to hear about your troubles though. At least you have a BMW, they're usually pretty easy to work on. The cooling system in the M42 is definitely a weak point. You're looking at the heater core input pipe there. The silver thing in the middle is a bypass that BMW installed as part of a recall campaign. It's a little thermostat that will bypass the heater core if the coolant gets too hot.
That's not a huge leak, I wouldn't go crazy trying to repair it. First, I'd replace the three clamps to see if that solves the problem. The clamps can wear out or get overtightened, and then they leak. I'd also inspect the hoses to see if any are cracked. If that's the case, can buy and install a temporary splice for that coolant hose. Buy a variety of sizes if you don't know fr sure which one you need, then return the ones you didn't use.
I'd strongly recommend replacing the clamps with OEM BMW parts. BMWs clamps have a better design than the typical hose clamp - the gear pattern is embossed onto the strap, that way the hose doesn't get sliced up like with the cheap generic clamps. I usually pull the clamps from old BMWs when I'm at the pick-n-pull, since they're pretty much free and have been the same design on most Euro cars for basically forever. I have a few of those bypasses if you need one, PM me your address and I'll mail it to you.
Topic: water leak? (Read 1955 times)