I think I need to replace my intake gasket soon, because I think the oil on my passenger side manifold is starting to **** me off, how much stuff do I need to remove to be able to remove the intake, would like some hints and recommendations from someone who's doen it before....

Or, could this oil simply come from the two middle manifold bold, would loosening then and putting teflon sealant on them amybe solve the problem?

(Only oil on the manifold here, no coolant!).

 

You sure it's not your valve cover gasket? The only time I've ever had oil on my intake manifold was when the vc gaskets died.

 

Could be.... In that case I have brand new gaskets & chrome valvecovers ready to install.....

 

I wouldn't just go pulling bolts out, sealing them and reinstalling them. Maybe you get lucky, then again, maybe it upsets the seal enough to fill your crankcase with coolant.

How hard is it is tough to say, depends on your comfort level with taking apart the TPI. I could probably R&R a TPI intake in 2-3 hours depending on how far i had to walk back to get more beers, but if it's the first time you had runners off, let alone the fuel rails then it might take you a bit longer.

The hardest part of the job is runners. With good allen bolts holding my stuff together i can R&R the whole upper in under an hour. The stock torx bolts are a pain in a few spots though. The next hardest part IMO would be the fuel line fittings into teh rail, just cuz they are hard to get a good swing on. All very doable though.

 

BTW best tip/tricks i can give you are these.

-Invest in 3/8-16 and M8x1.25 taps. Clean all the threads into the heads (3/8) and TPI related (M8) before you put it back together.

-invest in good allen cap screws to put the TPI back together.

You do that and reinstallation, as well as any future work becomes butter...

 

Can I leave the fuel rail & connectors as they are on the intake, and just disconnect the incoming and outgoing fuel lines to the rail or will I have to take everything off bit by bit?

 

I doubt you could leave the fuel rails mounted when you were pulling the intake. Besides, once you have the fuel lines disconnected it's 4 easy bolts to pull the rails so you might as well to make life a little easier. Besides the intake bolts, i think pulling the rail gives you easy access to the dizzy hold down. Again, not a big deal, but still. Like i said i could probably R&R in 2 hours easy, and that would include pulling everything up just to get it out of the way.

 

i have a quick question that deals with this.

i bought 2 bottles on this to stop the oil from coming up the bolts..

can i just easily pull one bolt at a time, clean it and then put the sealant on it and then torque that bolt down to the right torque spec, i am about to clean my engine bay and dont want this oil to show up again.

whens a good time to do this, when the oil is full cold, full hot, or in the middle.

thanks for any help.

 

anyone?

i ran a search and found out that i needed some sort of thread sealant, but wasnt too sure how to do it and whens a good time to do it.

 

Just use Black RTV, the same RTV that you use to seal the front and rear surfaces of the block to the intake. Just cover the bolt with some RTV and then tighten it down like you would normally. If you're going to take the bolts out one by one, you may as well just replace the gaskets while you're at it.. If you're taking the bolts out, you've already got everything off (plenum, runners, maybe fuel rail; I've done it with the fuel rail attached and like ed said, it's a lot easier with it off). Just drain the cooling system half way and go to town.

-Bruce89TA

 

eeeek. DO NOT use RTV as a thread sealer. RTV / silicone IS NOT the same thing. Silicone distorts torque readings because of the way it compresses in threads which can lead to either poor sealing, or even worse stripped fasteners.


Use thread sealer. Like what you show in your picture above. Thats what it is made for.

 

ok cool i got the right stuff, now how do i go about taking the bolts out.

i was going to start on the drivers side front, do one at a time and torque each one to the recommended torque (still have to find out what that is, one of my books should say that).

should i do this when the cars been cooled off for a few hours?

 

The recommended way to do it would involve pulling the whole intake.

I personally woulnd't even consider pulling and sealing the bolts one at a time over something as inconsequential as oil on the intake. You'll hate yourself if you cause a coolant leak and put your car out of commision over it. Really hate yourself if it leaks internall and kills your bottom end. I tend to be cautious though when doing work on my cars. Murphy has a way of biting me in the *** all the time.

Example being, why i am so vehement about the difference between RTV and thread sealer. I've used RTV as a thread sealer in the past too. Later i found out that wans't a good idea. Then one time i was doing a head gasket on my old 85 and forgot to pick up a tube of thread sealer. Figured what the hell, use RTV, worked in the past. Used it on the head bolts and intake bolts. Well, first i had 2 intake bolts into the heads strip out while putting it back together, which cost me a day of work since i didn't have a ride to get helicoils. Then less than a year later i lost that head gasket again. Next time i did it i used thread sealer. Never a problem after that.

 

Oops, I read the instructions wrong.. Listen to Ed. The instructions said to use thread lock II. I ran over the instructions too quick and just used the supplied RTV in the Fel-pro gasket set.

I'll agree with Ed on pulling the intake. If it doesn't work, you're going to have to do it all over again and it's not worth the $20 in savings.

MD, if you're short on money, wait until you can afford new gaskets. If you're waiting for someone to tell you to go ahead and pull each bolt and put it back in, I'll save you the trouble. Go ahead and do it, knock yourself out. But don't say we didn't warn you.

-Bruce89TA

 

well through many searches i thought it was a common thing to have oil in the vallies on top of the intake manifold..

and i just thought common practice was to pull each bolt and pull thread sealant on them to stop the oil from coming out and making little puddles..

i guess i will leave it alone but i thought i was doing good keeping this oil in the engine instead on top.

i was going to keep my engine bay real nice but this oil comes back i think, so i wanted to stop these leaks.