00 Lower intake gasket??

Can anyone offer a little help with this....

My 00 Olds Bravada (I know, not as cool as y'alls Chevy's, but I'm in love with it anyway) started losing engine coolant. I added some and it lost it, I added more and it lost it. By this time I'm getting convinced I had a leak somewhere.... (You were supposed to laugh)

It finally came to the point of hissing and steaming under the hood this past Saturday so I dug around to see where it was coming from. it kind of looked like it was coming form where the right side of the water pump attaches to the block, but I wasnt able to tell for sure. When the engine cooled down I started pulling shit out like I did 6 months ago when I followed Blazee's impecable instructions on changing the water pump.

I had this nagging voice in my head telling I coudn't be so lucky as to have this be my water pump, so I pulled off the radiator cap and stuck the hose in there. I used a cloth to create a seal to get pressure in the system and low and behold water started coming out just above the water pump. I couldn't see that far up so I had to remove the assembly that holds the AC compressor and the power steering resevoir. Sure enough, plain as day water is coming out between the lower intake piece and the driver side head block right up at the front of the engine.

I guess my questions are: Does this sound like a lower intake gasket to y'all? How difficult is this to correct?

My parts guy said that engine (4.3 W) had a faulty gasket design (refering to the lower intake gasket) and that a corrected design is available. He said he sells a ton of those.

Also, in the thread in the "How to" section where someone posted pics changing their lower intake gasket, they put Permatex around the holes, but I didnt see a gasket other than that. Did I miss something or did that person not use a gasket? Is it best to use a gasket and permatex, or does permatex do a good enough job on it's own? - Also what year model vehicle were those pics from? Will that be identical to my 2000?

When I did my water pump I put permatex on both sides of the real gasket.... does that sound abotu right and how I should do the lower intake gasket?

Please pardon my ignorance. Although I have always had a great desire to work on cars, I've never had more opportunity than the occasional alternator and starter. I changed the fuel injector in my 93 blazer a couple of times before it got totalled and I even changed the transmission in it once, but that was just a few bolts and a little bit of upper body strength.



I'm going to try to get pics up of where the problem is if that will help, or is this a no brainer, it's definately the lower intake gasket?

Thanks in advance for your help! You guys have been awesome in the past! Sorry I'm more of a consumer here than a provider, but if you need electrical advice, I'm your guy! (home or building electrical - not automotive! big difference!)

The leak is between the lower intake and the block I'd say by your post where only sealer (RTV) is used. The water jackets or passages from the block to the manifold are in the sides up front so thats common. After removing and cleaning the new gasket is installed and RTV added around these water passages (and at the ones that are in the rear that are dead ends - capped off by manifold - new intake old block design) and RTV bead is the only seal along the front and rear manifold to block. Have to be careful as you place the intake on so you don't mess up the rear bead so before the actual placement back on with seaker doo a trial run - the injection and sensor wiring should be tied up out of the way and then the large bundle on the pass side of the engine can be pushed/forced out of the way.

So I should put RTV around only the top side of the gaskets? And also along the front and rear edge of where the block and lower intake come together?