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Hi all, I have a rather nasty oil leak, and I'm not to certain where it's from.

I found this site here which seems great, and something I would like to do. (I guess all I need to buy for it is the intake manifold gasket, which I can get for 30$ cdn, so even if it doesn't fix my oil leak, not a huge deal.

Only problem is, it tells me to remove the intake manifold, and it seems like it's not a huge deal to remove. Then I look up in my hanes how to do it. It seems like there's a LOT of steps. I'm not to engine savvy yet, so I don't know if I want to tackel removing all that the haynes says you need to remove. I was hoping it'd be as easy as undoing a couple bolts, and badabing badaboom.

So, how hard is it to remove the intake manifold? For a point of reference, since buying the car (couple weeks ago) I've changed the oil/tranny fluid/rad fluid/rear diff fluid.

The person I had look at the car said he thought the oil leak was from the rear main seal, however it was so gunky from oil that it was hard to tell excactly where it was from. Could it be possible the oil leak is from the intake manifold and is just leaking down the back of the engine/over the tranny?

How can I tell excactly where the oil leak is from?

Thanks!

turbo_Z

First off if there is oil around the intake at the front or rear then you have an intake leak.. not main seal.

As far as difficulty... Id say I had a more difficult time putting in my FIPK. You just unplug every sensor and take the 4 bolts off the top of the fuel rail. Pull up on the rail till all injectors are free and set the rail up on the cowl out of the way. Then its just a matter of removing all 10-12 bolts and using a pry bar to break loose the seal. After that you need to clean all the mating surfaces... lay down the new gaskets with a fresh, heavy bead of silicone. Now just work backwards. Actually the only thing you need to make sure of is to let the silicone set up for 10 minutes or so that way when you set the intake down you don't smear the silicone everywhere. Oh and also when you scrape off the old silicone try to keep it from falling in the motor. Good luck.. its really not a hard job at all.

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Well, I've never seen any oil from the intake

Does that mean it probably isn't my intake? Or could it be right at the back where I can't see it?

Deenasty

get a small mirror, and place it in the back of the manifold, and shine a flashlight at it, and you will see everything back there. Check for oil..When my intake leaked, i saw oil even on the firewall...its not that hard...

Cwynn

Pulling the intake manifold is easy, I just did it last night for my heads swap.

shoebox

Just reach on the back of the engine and feel the seam where the intake manifold meets the block for oil leakage. The cam removal/install guide on my Tech Page has all the steps for the intake manifold.

RedThunder1994

Yea pulling the intake isnt all that hard, some good advice is just remember to put the stuff back where it was, if u have the haynes manual or even another friend with a camaro like yours (v8 obviously) then it shouldnt be that hard i did mine last night maybe only 2 hours of real work involved. I had an oil leak for a long time but couldnt find it but recently i had to change out the tranny so when i took it out i had my car on my hydro lift and put it up and looked back there and what do ya know, its leaking on backside of intake by the driver side corner, tured out that corner bolt was a little loose, but feel around back there for any oil spots, thats probably the problem. now im currently doing a header install, pretty easy really just take ya time with things

Jon97Z

Its not too bad but time consuming. I did it a few months back with another buddy extra hand. I used the link on Brent's site for mine. Its pretty straight forward. Every Camaro/Firebird I've seen with LT1 has that infamous leak behind the intake manifold. Usually you can tell with a mirror, or by looking under the car. The starter, oil filter, and bell housing to the tranny should have a light coating of oil. Its annoying.

This site should help you....

http://www.bfranker.badz28.com/fbody/guides.htm

Click on 'intake manifold' towards the bottom left. Brent's site has been an awesome resource for information as is Shoebox's site like he mentioned in the above post.

~Jon