I realize most of the folks on this board do their own work, but sometimes the job is big enough that I'm not sure I can tackle it, so I take the car in. Well, I ran into a good one today. I've got an intake manifold leak on my 87 350 TPI. It's been slowly getting worse, and now It's loosing coolant pretty rapidly. So I took it in to my regular shop. The car has 125K on it, and they called me today and said they couldn't repair it. They said they'd done too many of these on high mileage cars, and then had the bottom end start giving trouble (!) Now, if I were replacing the heads, I could understand this, but repairing/replacing the gasket in the intake manifold?!?!? Since when should THAT bother the rest of the engine??? They claim that if ANYTHING (speck of dust, was his exact words) gets down in the engine and they put things back together, I'll start having engine problems and come back and demand a new one. Has ANYONE had an issue with repairing the intake gasket causing the engine to blow? Or ever heard this story before? I could REALLY use some advice here! I suppose I could take it to a dealer, but they'd charge an arm and a leg, and then maybe I'd still have the same problem??

 

If the coolant has been leaking down into the engine
for a while the bearings will be finished. this is the probable cause of their past experience and fears.

They're just covering their A***s

Do the job youself. If the manifold is corroded at the back you can repair it with epoxy.

Change the oil before re-fireing it.

 

F-Bird88, thanks for the reply. Actually, the coolant is NOT leaking into the engine. (no smoke/steam from tailpipe, and no dilution of the oil) It, and the oil, are running down the side of the motor and off the oil filter. That's how we found the leak in the 1st place. What would be corroded on the back of the manifold? And what kind of epoxy would I use? The shop says that they are afraid carbon and gasket parts would get into the engine, and cause engine knock. Couldn't they like, run a shop vac over the top of the engine after they pull everything off? The engine is actually pretty decent for 125K, no knocks, no noticable blowby, doesn't even smoke on startup. Oil pressure is excellent, I pass emissions with flying colors. I'd hate to have something happen to it because of this repair, but I have to do SOMETHING, or I'm gonna wind up with a melted engine, either due to coolant loss or oil loss.

 

IROZINCO:

I replaced my intake gasket myself about 6 months ago. I really had no "engine-bay working" experience. I really don't think it's that hard to do. The hardest most time consuming part for me was cleaning the intake and scraping off what was left of the gaskets, on both the intake and the heads.

I also took my fuel injectors off and sent them in to get cleaned at the same time.

A few tips though... A timing light would be helpful to check the timing once you put everything back together. Also be careful not to get any gasket pieces or schmutz in the lifter valley. You should also use some good sealant for the front edge of the intake to the heads. And make sure you torque the intake bolts down. (In the right order and to the right torque spec.)

Overall, I think my heater core replacement was more difficult, if I remember right.

Good luck, and I don't think you need a lot of experience at all or need to pay anyone to replace the intake gasket. You'll learn a lot and get more acqainted with your car and comfortable working on it.

Oh, and the only manual I followed was the tech-article on replacing fuel injectors. It was pretty good.

 

It isn't a real hard task. I would try it yourself. I did mine myself when I first had the car. I had no idea what I was doing. But I did it.

Now I'll tackle anything...I've done so much work on cars in the past 2 years Its ridiculous....

Beware once you start getting good at wrenching your dad, brother, and all your friends are gonna need stuff done....

 

Ok, so no one has had any problem with breaking the bottom end because they replaced th IM gasket? I thought that sounded a little weird! They had me all paranoid that I was gonna break the car if we did this. GoonieZ28, I had the whole fuel system cleaned about 6 months ago. I was having weird starting problems, and replaced the FPR at that time, 'cause it was leaking. It looks a LOT more involved to go down to the intake manifold! And I've had experience with older cars, it seems like once you start messing with them, other stuff DOES break. So I guess I've got a MAJOR case of paranoia here! Thanks for all the help guys!

 

I did mine a last summer, Not a big deal

 

It should be no big deal at all.

If the shop is worried about changing an intake gasket b/c they don't want to get stuff int he motor, then they have no business working on cars

Just take your time and make sure the right bolts go back in the right holes

 

changing it wont cause more probs.


however, if a existing problem is already there, they just dont want you to blame them for it.


for example, if you car was leaking coolent into the oil, and now the crank bearings are fried, they dont want to change the intake gaskets, and then have your motor blow up a week later and blame them.