Well i did mine yesterday and it took around 5 hours with a trip to the parts store to pick up a coolant hose and vacuum hose. I spent some time trying to pry off the rear coolant hose under the manifold and ended up cutting it. The new hose i put on was about 1/2 inch too long so it covered the hole for the right rear bolt that holds the manifold...so it only has one rear bolt beaucse i am not taking that sucker off again. I wasnt able to remove the whole EGR tube but i did clean the top half and the manifold port as well...they were completely blocked. All in all: new VC gasket, plug grommets, TB gasket, bypass hose and i found the coil pack screw i dropped a little while ago. The VC gasket was extremely brittle and i could snap it in little pieces like a twig. Hopefully this fixes my leak.

My question: Does the lower half of the EGR tube get clogged up as bad as the top? Because when i cleaned the upper part looking down the tube portion it didn't have any carbon...

 

When I took off that guide tube at ~135,000 miles only the top half was clogged so you should be fine. It's probably caused by that sharp bend in the top section.

 

Thanks that was what i was hoping for.

My next problem is that i seemed to have developed a pretty good leak right below the oil pan around the pressure switch area right after my rear valve cover repair. I looked behind the manifold and it didnt seem like it was leaking out from there...its a pretty good constant drip coming from there. Why would this get worse right after the repair? or just luck of having an aging vehicle?

Ive done both VC gasket already. And i have had a new pressure switch with me for some time that i just havnt got around to replacing. Timing chaing tensioner cover is good, so is water pump cover.

Thanks in advance for any additional tips!

 

This should be a sticky by now

 

What should be a sticky?

 

I think he means the thread, valve cover gaskets and spark plug grommets along with oxygen sensors are the biggest causes for bad performance on these cars.

 

sorry to revive, but, I'm about to do the rear one. I'm gonna take 3 vacation days off of work to make sure I have ample time to do this the right way. cleaning the TB, IACV, maybe EGR. when I remove the TB, I have to remove I think 2 coolant hoses, when I take these off, will I lose coolant? or no? and how would I clean out the entire UIM?

 

Yeah youll loose some little bit of coolant but as long as you keep the radiator cap on then it should be very minimal.

I never really clean the intake but some parts wash and rags should help.

 

thought i bump this up since i just finished doing a complete valve cover gasket front and rear on a friends car,

 

yea, i gotta do mine soon too. I did my water pump so this shouldn't be that bad!

 

Time to bump this up, as this is a very useful thread

 

Someone come to GA or SC and do mine!

 

I would if I was close by.

 

Bumping this as I just did a customers car last week along with some new spark plug seals as well

 

Bumping as well, I just did front and rear VC, tube seals and bank 1 02 sensor because I had a SES for a bank 1 too lean on my 97 SE. After looking at it I saw that it was completely saturated in oil leaking from the rear VC. No more codes, but for a mysterious EGR code from a hose I probably twisted or bent. It comes and goes...

 

I know this thread is old, but it has some good information in it. I just got done doing all the plugs on my car, as well as the rear valve cover(and gasket) and the PCV valve. It really wasn't bad at all. The only thing that I had trouble with, was finding how much torque to put on the valve covers, so for anyone wondering, the figures I got were , 26 inch pounds to start with, and then 61 ft lbs to finish up with. If you need the order in which to tighten the screws, I have it on my laptop.

 

I hope you mean 61 inch pounds not foot. I would be amazed if the little bolts held up to that amount of force. Any way I use a highly scientific method of torquing down valve covers and oil pans and other small stuff. As tight as you can with only your wrist in (going in little increments of-coarse), that approach has never let me down.

 

From what I briefly read, it sounds like the $616.26 I was qouted today for Vavle Cover Gaskets is too high. Thoughts?

I was also quoted $79.60 for Oil Cooler O'Ring and ANOTHER $628.63 for the Power Steering Pressue Hose. Thoughts on those to please.

Thanks!
Clueless in Charlotte

 

The brackets for the rear of the intake manifold are much easier to get to if you simply unbolt the heater valve bracket from the firewall. No need to remove the heater hoses. Just push the valve assembly down out of the way.

Also, be careful of the EGR valve gasket. You may remove the EGR valve bolts and not see the gasket. I found mine under the car AFTER I re assembled everything. The EGR bolts are much easier to see, and to get to, if you simply remove the IACV. Without the gasket, the car ran OK but had an occasional misfire at idle.

The two tips above would have made the job much easier and would have saved me a couple of hours.