Replacing the Intake Manifold Gasket - What a Nightmare!

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Gregski

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Need to replace the Intake Manifold Gasket because I have a coolant leak.

Started at 8:00 am on a lovely Saturday morning, and it is now almost 1:00 pm in the afternoon. I still haven't gotten her off. It is an Air Conditioned car, and that gosh darn AC Compressor bracket serves two purposes, gets in the way of removing the driver side front intake manifold bolt, and by the way holds down the AC compressor, LOL.

I still have a sense of humor but it is fading fast. Lucky for me the wife took the kids in the other car to get hair cuts. So the radio is playing, and I am taking my time to do it right. As of this writing I have penciled down a list of 37 thingies I unbolted or unplugged, or disconnected, or removed, you get the idea. But I believe in order to get the AC compressor bracket out of the way I need to pull the power steering pulley off, and for that I need a super duper special puller. So off to NAPA I go, then maybe to AutoZone.

thanks for reading and wish me luck
California Greg

1997 Chevy Tahoe 5.7L 4WD 4 door (cause yes it makes a diff when buying parts, ask me how I know, LOL)
 
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Gregski

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some pictures of the AC compressor bracket

with the power steering pulley off I was able to remove the remaining 4 bolts and free the dreaded AC compressor bracket, here are some pictures
 

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Gregski

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and she's off like a prom dress

well not exactly, at approximately 3:40 PM the intake manifolds (technically the upper black plastic one, and the lower silver aluminumuninum one) were off, here are some pictures, please note the super clever use of the dozen egg carton for the eight intake manifold bolts, I'm sure you could use a 18 egg carton, and no you don't have to use a brown egg one like I did, I'm just sayin'
 

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Gregski

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the belly of the beast

just some pictures for you of what the under side of the lower intake manifold looks like of a 97 Chebby Tahoe, of note are the two blank openings where the rear water passages would be (top picture right side and or the bottom picture), I thought I read somewhere on the forum, that coolant leaks are common from the rear of the intake manifold do to gasket failure around these water passages, well... there are no water passages there, at least not on mine
 

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Gregski

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possible problem area

It would be easy to blame the passenger side front gasket failure as the culprit, but I'm too old to go for the obvious stuff, plus I saw some gasket sealant sticking out from the front middle of the valley pan, you know where there is no gasket just a bead of silicone, so maybe it leaked from there, maybe from both places, heck maybe from the rear who knows, it will be replaced soon, and that's all I care about
 

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Gregski

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please feel free to comment, I am not an expert and this is not "my" thread, I am sharing this hoping to help somebody out, if you see me doing something bonehead, please let me know how to correct it, I am here to learn, or say something to make us laugh that always works too
 

tonymac617

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Looks like your tackling this job with good spirits, but I must laugh that GM made these gaskets to fail so that they can repair them and make more money, however, they didnt count on the fact that people just ignored the fact that their coolant overflow tanks were somehow emptying, which implied to just add more...then that dreaded lower end knock. Uggggggg! Now a new engine is needed. Yay for plastic plastic gaskets in hot engines. lol Allot of their engines had gasket issues. Nothing ever recalled, but Bulletins went out and on some, the gaskets went from that plastic composite crap they were using to allumium like the 3.8 3800 motors.
 

Gregski

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Yup! I'm still trying to get over the plastic upper intake manifold on essentially what is a Chevy truck. Like a rock my @ss!
 

lesterl

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There was a Class Action Lawsuit on the LIM leaks, google it.

There are rear water passages, in the heads, not the intake IIRC.....

The engines 96-03 all fit into the class action AFAIK. 3.1l, 3.4l, 4.3l, 5.0l, 5.7l Good luck. BTW the Class Action was to reimburse people for repairs they paid to have done (thru a mechanic?)...
 

Gregski

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I'm an idiot I forgot to mark the distributor before pulling it now the car won't start. Please help. I found cylinder one at the top of it's compression stroke aligned with the timing marks on the vibration damper on the front of the crankshaft. I also did my best to have the distributor rotor point at the number one plug wire, had to finagle the notch in the oil pump shaft a bit to get them to align. Not sure how much to wiggle the distributor clockwise / counterclockwise to get her to start. Please help me get this egg off my face.
 

lesterl

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IIRC you point the rotor at #6 tower? Maybe I am thinking 4.3l? I am pretty shure when #1 TDC Compression you dont point rotor there.
 

lesterl

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6.When the distributor is fully seated, the rotor segment should be aligned with the pointer cast in the distributor base. The pointer will have a "6" or "8" cast into it indicating a 6 or 8-cylinder engine. If the rotor segment is not within a few degrees of the pointer, the distributor gear may be off a tooth or more. If this is the case repeat the process until the rotor aligns with the pointer.

-From www.autozone.com repair guide.

(of course this is after finding TDC Compression.)
 

Gregski

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Chevy Tahoe Distributor Installation

thank you all for trying to help, the following article seems helpful

http://autorepair.about.com/library/a/1a/bl340a.htm

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Align white paint mark on the bottom stem of the distributor, and the pre-drilled indent hole in the bottom of the gear (3).

With the gear in this position, the rotor segment should be positioned as shown for a V6 engine (1) or V8 engine (2).
 

lesterl

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I've always heard of the stamped 8 or 6 alignment.... but did it work?
 

Gregski

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I've always heard of the stamped 8 or 6 alignment.... but did it work?

Yup she's running again, the #8 makes the rotor point to approximately 5 o'clock if you were standing in front of the car looking straight down at the distributor. But you must realize that, that's not how you drop the dizzy in, since the gear is twisted you have to start with the rotor a bit counterclockwise from the 5 o'clock position, and then as she drops down she turns and falls into her happy resting place. Of course it is easy once you know how. Scratch that there ain't anything easy about it, LOL, it's just trial and error.

One problem was that I could not see the mark on the distributor shaft that is supposed to line up with the dimple on the bottom tip of the shaft. I had to take a paper towel and wipe off all the oil off the shaft to finally see it. It is faint and approximately 2 inches above the dimple, no not the hole that is one inch above the dimple, it is further up on the shaft.

I also finally went to AutoZone and rented the GM oil pump primer tool. It is worth every penny especially since you get to return it and get your $30 bucks back. I just couldn't turn the oil pump shaft with a long flat screw driver to save my life to get it to align right to allow the distributor to drop that final 1/4 inch.
 

Gregski

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some parting shots

here are some more pics of the job, I would call difficult but not complicated.

I sum this repair up as difficult but not complicated, if that makes any sense. It is difficult because there are many steps to follow, but essentially you are taking things apart and hoping to put them back together in the exact same way. There is no troubleshooting and or testing that would make this job complicated in my opinion, unless you forget to mark the distributor, LOL like me.

I use WD40 to soften up the gunked up old gasket. It makes scraping it off much easier and keeps the debris from flying all over the place. Afterwords I wipe off the surface the best I can, and then shoot it with some carb cleaner to dry it out and remove any oils. The towels catch any overspray. I use a ton of paper towels, as soon as a towel gets a bit dirty I toss it, and reach for a new one so I don't recontaminate the area I am cleaning.
 

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Gregski

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some before and after cleaning shots

I can't stand putting back on dirty parts, so I always spend a lot of time on cleaning them, and it is very hard, after wasting an entire airosole can of engine degreaser on the stupid AC compressor bracket with minimal results, I deiced to resort to my old bag of tricks for the intake manifold, are you guys sitting down, good... I used regular liquid dish soap, a bucket of hot water, a long bristle brush, a green 50 foot long garden hose, and some elbow grease, I taped off all the plugs with green "Frog" tape you use when you paint a room (from Home Depot) it's like blue tape but better supposedly, no I didn't blast the intake with the garden hose I held it on it's side and barely drizzled some water here and there to get the soap residue off

I don't clean for looks, I clean when it is practical, I couldn't reassembly the engine and have it look like in the before shots since then I wouldn't know if my new gasket was water/oil tight, now that the engine block is somewhat clean I should be able to tell if anything is leaking

by the way the stem of the oil filler is already leaking a bit on the driver side valve cover, what a silly design
 

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Gregski

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mandatory casualty

anytime I do a repair there are some casualties, if it's not the wife's towel set from the guest bathroom than for sure it is some busted knuckles, but in this case it's the poor PCV rubber elbow, man no matter how careful you are this stuff just gets brittle, and this guy had a long 15 year life, a quick trip to the local NAPA auto parts store and $5.05 later we were back in business

guess what the car would rev up and down without this little silly thing, I had no idea the valve it mates with the valve cover was that important
 

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lesterl

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The PCV sucks the vapors out of the crankcase and burns them in the fuel/air mix. There is a decent amount of vacume behind it and if cracks arise it will act up on ya.
 

RandyatBBY

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I am in the middle of the same project your thread is helping. I am stuck on trying to drain the cooling system. I was told that the bolt on the bottom of the block if removed will drain the system but I can not get a good grip in it. I will get a picture of it and post it.
 
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