Replacing the Intake Manifold Gasket - What a Nightmare!

[Gregski]

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)

 

[SunlitComet]

Actually you just swing the compressor out of the way. No ps pump or brackety of it should be required to do intake gaskets unless ou are doing the heads too. Just undo the four bolts holding the compressor down.

 

[Gregski]

Actually you just swing the compressor out of the way. No ps pump or brackety of it should be required to do intake gaskets unless ou are doing the heads too. Just undo the four bolts holding the compressor down.

Wish that were true, believe me I tried exactly what you suggested, but on mine I could not get to that one bolt in the front, heck I can't even take off the driver side valve cover with that darn AC compressor bracket bolted on.

 

[Gregski]

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, I probably didn't have to take it all the way off, but as you can see in that first photo I wanted to clean up the mess behind and under it before reassembly, here are some pictures

 

[SunlitComet]

Oh well when I did my heads I just moved the assembly forward. no ps part removal was needed. Including pulley to reach hardware.

 

[Gregski]

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'

 

[Gregski]

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

 

[SunlitComet]

Tear it down and send it off for dipping. use all new gaskets as well and o'reily's among others have new intake bolts with the perfect sealant on them already. $17 I think. Have you seen my engine failure thread from last year?

 

[Gregski]

Tear it down and send it off for dipping.

Other than being Fugly what's wrong with it?

Have you seen my engine failure thread from last year?

... and um, no

 

[Gregski]

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