Oil leak at lower intake bolt

[east302]

I'm chasing an oil leak on a 1998 350. It's a Jasper reman that the previous owner installed four years ago. It has about 40k on it.

I've tracked the leak to the lower intake bolt at cylinder #2.

It originally looked like oil was seeping from under the intake bolt and dripping down into the little valley between the intake and the valve cover. I snugged the intake bolt to 11 ft-lbs (the final torque in the three step sequence). It was about 1/4 turn shy. Also tightened valve cover bolts to spec. Each bolt took two or three turns.

Cleaned it up, dried it with compressed air and drove it for a week.

Oil isn't coming from under the bolt anymore. But, it looks like there is oil between the gasket and lower intake.

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Is it even possible to get oil leaking through the intake gasket (seems kind of far away from the lifter valley) or is it more likely that the valve cover gasket is leaking and dripping down?

There is no lower intake coolant leak and I'm not seeing any coolant in the oil.





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[redfishsc]

I'm trying to imagine how oil would be leaking from that location on the intake. My suspicion is the valve cover. Those are easy enough to re-gasket, you might want to investigate and put a new gasket under it.

I don't think the oil follows any pathways in the lifter valley for oil to be weeping from that spot, especially through the intake gasket.

 

[east302]

Thanks, that's kind of what I'm thinking (and hoping) too.

If it was going to leak from the intake, I'd think that it would be through the back.


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[east302]

Pulled the cover, there is some residue on the gasket where the oil was collecting at the intake.

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Corresponding leak spot at the intake bolt....

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It doesn't look like much but it's been going for a while and coated the starter.

Replacing it with a felpro, going to assume that it's the problem.



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[east302]

Well, the valve cover is bent up and has tool marks on the inside where someone pried on it. No wonder it leaked. Guess whoever put the Jasper engine in was a dumbass.

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[redfishsc]

Wow. That's a real winner of a botch.

 

[Urambo Tauro]

Bingo! So it's been leaking all this time over the past four years, hasn't it?

 

[east302]

I bought it a little over a year ago, but had thought it was the oil pan gasket leaking when I originally looked at it. Yeah, it must have been leaking for years now...running down the head/intake "seam" onto the oxygen sensor and starter.

I figured a reman engine would have come with valve covers. Maybe they didn't.

The previous owner dropped almost $4k on the replacement. I'd be pissed purple if it had been me.




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[tinfoil_hat]

Good chance to buy a new/junkyard set of covers and paint them Chevy orange....

 

[east302]

Lol, salvage yards are like the grocery...I always leave with more than I went for.


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