Today I finally took some time to get the worsening intake gaskets replaced. Over all not a bad procedure. 6 hours is slow-mo mode. I think 4 hours is very reasonable if you really work on it at a steady pace.
The thing is, I expected to find gaskets in very rough shape. I was leaking water at about 1 gallon per week, if not more. I also am pretty sure during cool down it would leak into the cylinders a little. I had some stumbled starts which are now gone. But the gaskets were physically fine. Someone had been into the intake before and the driver side bolts all came out way too easy. I dont think they were every torqued right! Hence the leak. Also about 4 bolts were rounded out bad. Not happy about that at all.
Victor Reinz gaskets were a perfect fit and pretty cheap at $7 per side.
Advice: Get a new intake boot even if you think yours is fine. Mine was pretty soft and a lot of work had been done on the car prior to purchase. So I think it was replaced once already. And the work was all done at a dealer as far as I could tell. But while the boot seemed soft and "good". It was cracked at the throttle body badly. Once removed, game over. But there was enough left that I used silicon to seal it for now. Because of this, I did not replace the 8 plenum interface donuts at this time. Will do that when I venture back in. Also get new isolating rubber support for the air meter. Again, thought they were fine but only one was actually attached. The rest had broke off like they always do. Order 5 if you need one for your idle air valve, they are cheap. As for the EGR valve, just disconnect at the valve and it will come along with the intake. There is not other way to remove it as the mount point is impossible to get at otherwise. Best to connect it first before moving onto the intake reinstall.
The only issues were the dang bolts! One snapped off - something I expected since it was a source for water leakage. Did my best to prevent it, but she snapped. The rest came out without any issue and most looked new.
Overall not a hard procedure, just lots of stuff to disconnect and remove.
07-04-2014, 11:11 PM
Linear Mode
