OK,

Got this truck from my Brother in Law and it has a fairly good oil leak on the passenger side. Looks like the valve cover gasket.

He said he had not changed it because of the labor in volved.

So, it looks like I have to remove the in take and a mess of "pipes" running around the engine...

The Haynes shop manual doesnt even have valve cover gaskets listed.

So how hard is it to remove all of the interferrences to replace the valve cover gaskets?

 

The job isn't that hard. You have to pull the upper intake off and the part that may give you the biggest hastle is the EGR tube connected to the exhaust manifold, if it's heavily rusted I suggest avoiding it all together and just disconnect the EGR valve from the intake. Outside that you have to disconnect the vacuum lines on top of the intake and the coolant lines on the throttle body, just have a coulple bolts ready to plug the coolant lines when you take them off and you won't loose much fluid. The last hurdle is the upper intake bolts, the center one under the intake is a Torx so you need a long bit or an adapter for a 1/4 drive socket to reach it. Get a new gasket for the intake and EGR before starting and be carefull not to drop a bolt down the intake runners.

 

I think I'll start gatering the parts. I ordered a distributor for it yesterday because I am having problems with intermittant stalling. Replaced the coil the other day, seems to be doing ok but It always fails in the summer when the engine compartment gets hotter then normal from towing a 7500# boat.

While doing the valve cover gaskets, is it just one step further to replace the intake gaskets, it too has a small leak in the front........man do I hate 20 year old vehicles.

Lar

 

To pull the lower intake off you have to disconnect the fuel rail from the fuel lines and that can be an ugly job as well, the connectors require a pair of disconnect tools and they are often difficult to seperate then. Once disconnected you're only a few bolts away from removing the lower intake, if none of the bolts break it'll go pretty good, I haven't had any trouble with intake bolts breaking but others have, the ones near the water jacket get corroded and are most likely to cause problems.

 

take pics of where everything goes and along the way to remember where everything goes.

back and label everything.

you do have a manual to refer to i hope.

good luck.

 

really not difficult just aggrivating , btw get the ford gaskets they are superior to the rest ! metal /rubber valve cover gaskets and a rubber end seal intake sets

 

OK,

I took today to check out all of the info and the throttle body...I found the torx bolt, doesnt seem too hard but I do not see the 6th bolt......the 3rd one on the passenger side is not quite in view. I got the 3 on the drivers side and the first 2 on the passenger side but where the heck is the third one on the passender side............?????????????????????????????:conf used:

I guess if I remove all of the hard piping I just might find it?

OMG!

 

It's at the back of the motor, get a small mirror and you'll see it.

 

This is sounding like a fun job.