[DirtyLarry]

What I mean about the intake being dry is there is no coolant flowing through it. The oil pan and valve covers have reusable gaskets as well. Depending how many miles and heat cycles your engine has been through will determine if they will actually be reusable. You’ll know when you take it apart as the gaskets will either fall apart or stay intact. The timing chain cover has a formed reusable gasket also but has a lot of sealant towards the oil pan side so I would just pull the cam sensor and paint it still on the engine. Actually, I would paint everything right on the engine but I personally am not into shinny stuff like polishing or chroming. If nothing leaks now, why bother pulling that stuff off and potentially creating a leak.

Also, this is a good time to change the crank sensor while the engine is out, especially if it has around 80 to 100K on it, as you will absolutely not be able to change it once it is in the truck. If your engine has aluminum valve covers you already have the latest design crank sensor. If it had black valve covers you would definitely want to change the crank sensor to the later design, which GM superseded the part numbers anyway so you automatically get the later sensor regardless of what year 8.1L you order the crank sensor for. The early design crank sensor has two o-rings (one at the top and one at the bottom) while the later only has one at the top of the sensor.