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Car Forum / Driving, Maintenance, Tuning / Maintenance and Repair / January 2006

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5.7 litre GM intake manifold leak

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Brian - 05 Jan 2006 19:36 GMT
The wonderful plastic intake manifold...

My 2000 chev van with the 5.7 litre is using about 2 quarts of antifreeze
every three months or so.  I can smell antifreeze every once in while but
can't find a leak.  Lately I have thought that I could smell antifreeze in
the exhaust.  In the past few months I have a lifter tick on cold starts
that goes away after five minutes.  50,000 miles.

What test can be done to diagnose this, what are the odds that I do or don't
have the infamous intake manfold gasket leak?  I suspect that it's going to
cost major bucks to change this in a van...

Brian
aarcuda69062 - 06 Jan 2006 00:18 GMT
> The wonderful plastic intake manifold...

Not plastic...
The upper plenum is plastic, the lower (where they leak) is
aluminum.

> My 2000 chev van with the 5.7 litre is using about 2 quarts of antifreeze
> every three months or so.  I can smell antifreeze every once in while but
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>
> What test can be done to diagnose this,

Pressurize the cooling system, look for where the leak is.
Front of the passenger side cylinder head is the frequent bet.

> what are the odds that I do or don't
> have the infamous intake manfold gasket leak?  

Odds are good.  have 'em do the water pump right away since they
usually leak within a month of repairing the intake leak.

> I suspect that it's going to
> cost major bucks to change this in a van...

The labor isn't a whole lot worse than a pick-up truck.
bob - 06 Jan 2006 04:13 GMT
> > The wonderful plastic intake manifold...
>
[quoted text clipped - 23 lines]
>
> The labor isn't a whole lot worse than a pick-up truck.

I added coolant for a couple of years to my 96 chevy pickup with the 5.7 and
did exactly as aarcuda69062 suggests.  "Rented" a pressure tester from
Autozone.  After a couple of pumps on the pressure tester the coolant was
obviously running out of the gap between head and intake on the
passengerside near the front of motor.
Brian - 06 Jan 2006 18:23 GMT
Thanks, I have a pressure tester so I will try this once it's warm out.  I
thought for some reason that the leaks were normally internal to the engine,
so you wouldn't see anything external.

Brian

>> > The wonderful plastic intake manifold...
>>
[quoted text clipped - 34 lines]
> obviously running out of the gap between head and intake on the
> passengerside near the front of motor.
bob - 07 Jan 2006 03:46 GMT
> Thanks, I have a pressure tester so I will try this once it's warm out.  I
> thought for some reason that the leaks were normally internal to the engine,
[quoted text clipped - 40 lines]
> > obviously running out of the gap between head and intake on the
> > passengerside near the front of motor.

Brian, mine was external but I believe some was internal also as there was
lots of goo in the intake on that side to the front.  Based on the looks of
the failed gasket, I'd also say it could leak either direction.  May be I
was lucky but my cousin's failed to the outside also so maybe this is
common.  That is about the extent of my experience on this subject.
 
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