The aftermath
After exactly 100 miles I changed the motor oil and the oil filter again, and this time I also bought new Dex-Cool. The oil that was just 100 miles old already looked dirty. If anyone recommends to do this, DO IT! Your engine asks for it!
I've been driving this truck now for another week. Everything seems perfect so far. I am totally happy that I have successfully performed my first ever (and hopefully my last!) intake manifold gasket replacement, all by myself and that my only true helper was the Internet. But what a helper!!! :)
My Burbie is holding seal so far, it is clean and smiles at me. The second oil is now 200 old and looks like new. All the nasty stuff inside the oil filler cap is gone now and everything works like a dream. I hope to be able to drive this truck another 130k miles at least!
Was tough, but I did it!
It was not easy to work inside a garage without A/C in the very hot and sunny Southern Florida. Temperatures close to 100F felt like 200F in my garage, and the humidity makes you sweat your guts off.. If you use halogen lights like I did, add 100 more degrees to all that. But when someone says something about intake manifold gasket repairs, I will very proudly say that I actually did one myself.
I still can't believe that the scanner hasn't returned any error codes yet.. I was either perfect in the installation of my distributor, or darn lucky! I am an IT guy, I work with computers for a living and until a month ago the only thing I knew about cars was to fill them up with gas and change the oil at Wal-Mart every 3k miles. So trust me when I say that if I can do this repair, you can do it too!
I am not sure what exactly brought you to this page, but assuming that you are interested in doing this repair yourself and are looking for some guidance, let me wish you the best in succeeding with your own intake manifold gasket replacement!!!
Jeremy
