Thread: Leaking gaskets need diagnosed (with pics)

You need to undo the rear 3 wires at the coils and flip them onto the cowl... that's it.

I simplified a bit. You are going to find a vacuum line and nut or two I left out.. Those are things my hands do w/o thinking.. well ... most of the job acutally, but I've done it once or twice.

little extra tip i did when i did my lim.

remove the dog bones, remove the lower rad hose from the timing cover, let it drain, then push the engine to the firewall and then back to the rad, you'll see more coolant come out when its pushed back and fourth.

now when your ready to pull the lim off, break the plastic elbow so its not a fight, and then lift the lim off as level as possible so no coolant leaks out of it.

the cooling ports on the lim have a small lip that will hold some coolant in the lim still, rocking the engine back and fourth gets rid of a lot of it. when i took mine off, not a drop spilled and i didnt do a oil change when i was done.

you can do it all in a after noon. its not hard. once the fuel rail and wire harness are off its all easy.

did mine in like 3 hours. first time doing one on a 3800. hardest part was cleaning off the old upper plenum gasket (aka blower gasket) off the lim and blower.

See....we told you.. it's easy

from this.



to this in about a hour or so.




before you start the lim job go buy some new vac line and T's cause those are gonna break. the fat hose off the TB may also break.

Originally Posted by 2FASTGTP

The vac lines will break?

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Yep. Just ask CpnBreakAlot............

Originally Posted by Below Average Joe

Yep. Just ask CpnBreakAlot............

He also fried his ICM wiring and killed a battery on his 2nd LIM gasket attempt

the T's will break. so you need new T's one for the fpr, one for under the snout.

you can replace most of the hard lines if you want to, or cut the old ends off the heard lines, then cut 3, inch and a 1/2 long pieces of vac line to put on the T, then push the hard lines into the vac line on the new T.

this was my old factory line from the front of the engine. bbp valve, to fpr, to under the snout line. i replaced it all.



best T's i could find local was at advance auto. they have a whole section of vac T's and parts. they have these small white T's 2 in a pack for 2 bucks. best T's around. vac line is sold by the foot. i did most of my engine with new line and the t's for 5 bucks.

Originally Posted by Russosaur

He also fried his ICM wiring and killed a battery on his 2nd LIM gasket attempt

now lets not scare the guy now. capt breaks everything, we are not all like that.

Water pump will be super accessible. You'd need to yank off the SC idler pulley, lower the power steering pump (2 bolts that you can't see), then it's 4 13mm bolts, 4 or 5 10mm bolts and a gasket cleaning. Honestly though..I've seen water pumps last into the 300K mark on these cars. The pump will go bad when it will. A new one can do the same.

T stat is two bolts in the housing on the LIM. Literally a t stat change takes 5 min on the car with it fully assembled. You pop hood, undo two 10mm bolts, pull up on it.. clean the surfaces, pop the new one in and put the housing back on. I leave the hose on it and all. Two bolts is all I do. Then check your coolant level...cause you let out about 4 cups.

As for capnbreakitall... he obviously wasn't paying full attention and sandwiched wiring in the process. I'll tell you honestly .. I can't imagine how that happened... I've done these things slowly, fast, drunker than drunk and all kinds of sleep deprived. Never could i pull that off.

Yes

Which....is already in your motor