Hard Starts

Hi Everyone,

My truck is 1992 with the 4.3w engine with about 76K Miles. About 80% percent of my starts I need to pin the gas to the floor to get her fired, cold or hot. The other times she turns over and fires fine with the exception that the RPMs sound to dive a little low for the first few seconds.

This has been ongoing for about a year, but then it would start fine 90% with 10% starts problematic.

I know that there is washing in the manifold and that there is a little bit of coolant in the engine oil.

I have not had the plugs changed for about 8 months, fuel filter 1 year, cap + rotor 1.5 years wires-never. Should I be focused on a tune up or other areas.
Could this be EGR, the pintle seems a little stiff!

thanks

First priority is to find the source of the coolant in the oil and fix it, if it's not too late. Even with just a small amount of coolant in the oil the engine won't last long.

Then find and fix the problem of the washing in the manifold.

With those things fixed your hard starting will probably be taking care of.

I just ordered the fuel injector / regulator kit along with the upper and lower manifold gaskets.

Is it possible that if the lower intake gasket leaks that coolant can get in the oil, or is this only possible when the head gasket leaks?
Should I even bother to change the lower intake gasket if this does nothing to help find the leak?
Should I get a cooling system pressure/leak test done? And if i do will this help locate the leak?

I know it's a very minor leak, i just changed my oil yesterday and found no visual traces of coolant, but 2 months ago there was a few milliliters.

I would like to do the fuel injector kit my self so I can give the plenum a cleaning and save some bucks.

I just don't know if i should take it to the shop to do the tests, or do the work then if leaking still occurs then bring it in.

Any advice would be great, thanks

Yes, it's possible the lower intake gasket could leak and let coolant get into the oil. Usually the leak is to the outside of the engine, but not always.

Look in the How-to/Technical Info (http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=620747) for detailed step by step instructions on replacing the nut kit, spider and fuel injectors. After looking at the posts and pictures you can determine if you want to try to do it yourself.

Check out this post, (http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=4686452&postcount=7) in ref to lower intake coolant leak.

The nut-kit is not included with the the fuel injector assembly so i went to GMC to get a price.
17112705 Nut kit, T : Price 166.38
17113166 Seal Kit : Price 54.12

They said that I need a seal kit to seal the both the feed and return lines.

Why is the seal kit not mentioned in any of these HOW-TOs?

Also I went to <http://www.gmpartsdirect.com/>; and found that I could save some big bucks.

Is the seal Kit necessary? Are any other parts necessary that are not mentioned?

Thanks