98 int.manifold job update=

[jamesmetairie]

1998 3.1 intake manifold gasket replaced with felpro metal gasket kit as discussed. very soon oil dripped on carport floor. mechanic says it,s leaking thru on drivers side forward. now i can see it dripping down around the starter area.. mechanic says he only used the small tube of silicon provided in the felpro kit. he did not use the extra tube i bought at the parts store.mechanic says let,s wait and see if it seals itself. he says it did not contaminate the coolant so he did not change coolant or oil when gasket replaced. i changed oil myself. question =- does it sound like i,m screwing up driving the car the way it is . any advice will be appreciated. jim.

[twistedtech]

Hard to say without seeing it but if it was not leaking before,guess what.Screwing it up? At best you pouring oil all over the place,it is possible it is not sealed elsewere and might be seeping into the coolant or in to runner ports.Sounds like a re-do.

[richtazz]

It is possible he shifted the lower intake while installing it, knocking the bead of silicone out. Also, did he replace the oil pump drive o-ring while he had it torn down? This is a very common oil leak on the 3.1. It is situated in the block under the throttle body. It's essentially a distributor shaft with the top part cut off and drives the oil pump via a gear off the camshaft. The o-ring shrinks and hardens and leaks oil like a sieve. Fel-Pro part number is 70800, and I also put a paper gasket (70194) as added insurance against future leaks. This o-ring isn't "technically" part of an intake job, but not replacing it while you have it torn down is silly if you know anything about the 3.1 engine.

[jamesmetairie]

i bought the "o" ring at the dealer. dealer sold wrong one. mechanic said he had one that would work and used it.. i don,t see any oil leaking from that area . my shady tree friendly mechanic is not very excited about redoing the gasket. he wants to wait to see if it seals itself ?? . he does screw up sometime. but it,s always an honest mistake. it hurts,but i can deal with that. and then i called about 6 shops today. no two had the same plan.

[jamesmetairie]

Originally Posted by richtazz

It is possible he shifted the lower intake while installing it, knocking the bead of silicone out. Also, did he replace the oil pump drive o-ring while he had it torn down? This is a very common oil leak on the 3.1. It is situated in the block under the throttle body. It's essentially a distributor shaft with the top part cut off and drives the oil pump via a gear off the camshaft. The o-ring shrinks and hardens and leaks oil like a sieve. Fel-Pro part number is 70800, and I also put a paper gasket (70194) as added insurance against future leaks. This o-ring isn't "technically" part of an intake job, but not replacing it while you have it torn down is silly if you know anything about the 3.1 engine.

mechanic cleaned the engine leak. it was running alot down the front around the starter area. he ran the car and found the leak to be from the "o" ring. he tried unsuccessfully to pull the "o" ring. he could not get it out. he said he did not have enough room . we decided to put the job off till after the hoildays. NOW the weird thing !! the car is driven daily and i ain,t seeing any oil leaking. is it possible that he twisted the part into a sealing position ?? if it don,t spring a leak again,i doubt that i,ll ask him to do the whole job again. jim.

[tblake]

you can get to the O-ring with the throttle body off. Its nt that difficult.

[jamesmetairie]

1-7-07 and still ain,t leaking??? good luck beats all. here,s a question. = if it starts leaking again would "liquid steel" solve the problem?i,ve seen it used on an oil pan with success. hate to see my mechanic do the whole job over again and maybe break some good parts ! he swears he can,t get to it without doing the whole job again.

[tblake]

did you see my post? "Coolant??? Going where?????" I just did the same job, and you can see a picture of the dummy shaft. I'd say worst case scenario that all that would have to come off would be the upper intake plenum and fuel rail. This should give enough room. Steel seal i'd advise aginst. Someone on here used it a while back, or something of the sorts. Long story short, somehow he busted a crankshaft in half not long after.

[jamesmetairie]

the original leak was not the oil "o"ring. we changed that as a prevention. the original leak was not mixing with the oil. it was going straight out the side.i,m hoping the "fel-pro" metal gasket set is the magic answer to this type engine problem.however most of the shops in new orleans area are not using the highly recommended fel-pro. napa offers "victor"?? apparantly the shop suppliers are pushing plastic.

[tblake]

thats strange, I had no problems finging the metel one. I think I got it from o'riley auto parts. They are the ones that let me borrog the coolant pressure tester, so I ordered one from them.

[richtazz]

The Victor gaskets are cheaper, that's why shops use them. They are the same design as the garbage OEM gasket, so I strongly advise against using them. The Fel-Pro gasket set will eliminate the problem, as long as you used thread-lock on the lower intake bolts. The issue with these engines is a very low torque value on the fasteners combined with the bi-metal engine (heads and intake are aluminum and the block is cast iron) and the different expansion rates of the metals. That oil pump o-ring can be changed by removing the throttle body and coolant transfer tube as an assembly (as there are two small hoses from that transfer tube to the throttle body that are impossible to reach). Like I suggested before, install both the o-ring (Fel-Pro 70800) and a small block Chevy distributor gasket (Fel-Pro 70194) between the top of the block and the oil pump drive as added insurance against future o-ring failure. I hope your mechanic friend learned a valuable lesson about not doing so.