GM Intake Gasket replacments

[chevyguy]

I think we are all doing a lot of intake gasket replacements on GM products. Late 1990's to early 2000's.

Seems 1 out of 10 turn bad on us. Main bearings go, other leaks start. I had one yesterday that came back with what looks like a blown head gasket or cracked head.

Most of the comebacks are on vehicles with over 100,000 miles. Sure makes us looks like a goat to the customer. Car comes in with what we say is a leak, a week later over heats or engine knocks.

Anybody have a take on this?

We decided yesterday to have a customer sign a form stating "because of this repair, another may develope"...........seems I may just chase them away?

Is it just me, or does eveyone run into this problem?

We're all looking for customer pay work, but it's biteing us in the but!

[69mach1]

chevy-guy,
we do 2 things on all engine repairs no exceptions.
1. oil sample kit you can purchase from any big filter company or Cat or Cummins, works great results come back right away shows who much metal and what type in oil,
2. heat tabs are attached to engine , tab melts it was over heated
these are 2 simple things that can make your life better

[robc]

Those are great ideas, but the one thing I never got about heat tabs is what does that prove specifically. I mean if I was a customer and I said I was driving, engine slowed down, lights went on and it started smoking - of course it overheated. It could have over heated from a hose that blew-off because it was loose, or the headgasket shifted ... I am just thinking in court, how do I tell the judge I am not paying for something I just worked on because it was overheated.

I somewhat get it for engine rebuilders because the cause of the overheating was likely not the engine, but for a shop the cause for overheating could possibly be your fault.

I've never used heat tabs so does it take like 5-10 mins of being above 225-250 for them to melt?

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** Rob Campbell, Contributing Editor for DealersEdge **

[Gran Sasso]

Are you talking 3.8's?

Replace the upper plenum as well as the gaskets. We do a TON of these...and I never seem them come back for this sort of problem.

[scotstrong]

What, are you insinuating that those nuts and washers GM had everyone replacing for leaking intake gaskets on 3.8's did not fix them?

Scot Strong

[chevyguy]

The egine we repair are

3.4 Chevy Ventures, Impalas
4.3 is S10's
older 350's in trucks.
still a few 3.1's around

Have a lot of combacks on the Ventures for some reason, but not on the Impalas

[chevyguy]

For 69mach1

Never heard of these heat tabs, so I did a little reseach on the web. I found out exactly what they do.

But how would you use these? Once the damage has been done, it's too late to install them then?

I don't understand how you would use them in this process?

Do the manufacturer's install then at the factory?

[Old Irish]

No easy or totally foolproof way around this sort of problem...except lots of repeated disclosures about the "might be" and "could happen" stuff....and hope the customer remembers (heh heh heh....we know they often remember only what is convenient or advantageous to remember, so your in-writing idea is good)

Some of the worst pickles I've been in have been where, with all good intentions, we tried putting new shoes on a dead horse. Everyone ends up walking away unhappy.

Its hard to condemn an engine just because of a leaky intake, though.....and it would surely hurt giving up the hours. Still, it seems like we always and up looking like the bad guys when these jobs go sour.

A lot depends on the service advisor and how he presents the repair to the customer....gotta be careful in that respect. Sometimes they'll....um....er....sorta gloss over the negatives. You know you're in trouble if the advisor is heard saying "yeah, you just need a new intake gasket for $800 and you'll be as good as new again" Yikes !!!

Good luck

DD

[fburrows]

I dont know if this is relative to this discussion but back in the old days we had similar problems with the 2.8 and 3.1 GM V-6. The intakes would leak antifreeze into the crankcase and if there was antifreeze in the oil the engine was toast. I spent a fortune installing short blocks after unsuccessful repairs. We bought test kits from these guys and charged them out on the RO as a part. If the engine tested positive for antifreeze we would not attempt a repair. We bought the kits from Nelco at http://www.aviceda.com/nelco/ or 651-738-2014

I dont know if antifreeze is an issue with the current problems you are experiencing, but if so this might help.

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Frank Burrows
fburrows@absdata.com

[chevytech]

Make sure your techs are not using roloc cleaning pads on die grinders. If any of the material off the pads get in the engine, it will be toast.