Changing out an intake manifold is no big deal, right... but no, it keeps going. I saw this little area of coolant down in the engine area and started being concerned about coolant crossing over and getting into the oil. I figured it was just residual coolant from the intake manifold/block that had fallen down in there, but I figured I'd just drain my oil and see what it was looking like
Sure enough it was milky, and after a while of letting the pan settle out you could tell that the coolant had separated itself and was sitting in a fine layer on top of the oil.
Now, I have to be fully transparent here and own up to what mistakes I had made when initially building my top end... I was a bit hasty at the time for sure, I checked the photo dates during that time and it was over a year and a half ago that I had initially done it.
But I remember not cleaning off any of the bolt threads, and I remember straight up dipping the bolts in oil then bolting the heads down. Big mistake. At this point I'm surprised I wasn't leaking blinker fluid as well.. pretty much the only thing I did right was the torque spec and sequence
Now if it were only coolant in the oil, I would have considered trying to change and add sealant to each bolt one at a time. But since I had the intake off already, I in a way felt a responsibility to take it all apart and attempt to do it properly.
So this time I actually chased all the threads, including the ones on the block, I cleaned up all the mating surfaces, got new gaskets and grabbed some teflon sealant. I drained all the coolant from the block and got the rest of it torn down one evening after work.
I had it all back together Friday and just let it sit til I could get back over there Sunday to do all the final reassembly stuff and fill all the fluids up again. I ran it for a while today and so far so good! A few trips up the block and back and so far not a drop. As far as coolant in the oil goes though, I'm gonna run it again tomorrow and then go ahead and change the oil again this week and see how it's looking. Even if it's good to go Im hoping this oil change will help get any of the extra moisture out that had gotten in there initially. And if the oil is milky again then, well... idk what to do so pray for me
Also, one minor fix that I took care of all at the same time was that the tensioner pulley was too close to the radiator fan. I had noticed it before but being as it wasn't a spinning part I paid it little mind, but I didn't consider the fact that the tensioner is spring loaded, so once the engine was running it would move just enough and create like a tapping noise, bumping on the fan housing. I had mounted the fan dead center on the shroud so while I had everything apart I went ahead and pulled the shroud and shifted the fan up and to the right and drilled new holes. Plenty of clearance now
I tried to clean up my spark plug wires a bit too by running them on the under side of the headers, but really they're not quite long enough on the passenger side to do it. Looks a little better though, I'll take what I can
