Is This Normal? Intake Removed.......

[Mike K3500]

YES! Our 96 Buick Roadmaster Wagon came with Dexcool and the father in law when he got it in about 05 had it flushed and the regular stuff put in. about a year later it blew out that plastic tee / restrictor heater hose header tank manifold that the LT type engines have. It would crumble in your fingers when I took it off. My service manager neighbor pointed out one of the big issues they had was Dexcool eating those QD connectors in the heater circuit and failing suddenly.
How long was the initial change interval for Dex-cool? Like 7 years? The whole warranty period? :skep:

I think it's great to hear that some people have good luck with it and I'm happy for them, however I had a 97 K2500 'Burb.. All the connectors / couplers / valves for the rear heat turned very brittle and crumbled in my hands as you described, upon closer inspection, you could see that they were stained orange and looked as if it had penetrated the material .. radiator tanks gave out... shit like that, not to mention the countless intake jobs I had done for people mostly were 3800's , vortec 4.3, 5.0 and 5.7's.

I can see the point maybe that the formula has changed and maybe the composition of the materials to accommodate it, but it left a bad taste in my mouth anyways.. Hell, the green shit has been around for decades.. why F*** with a tried / proven thing ??

 

[deejaaa]

i will flush it out, no matter how old or year it was put in.
here is the harness removed:

a few years ago, i bought an engine, 99 model, for the 93 truck. it came with everything and i held on to all the parts. lo and behold!

a perfectly good harness!
the only change i detected was an extra wire that i don't need. i was all ready to splice and dice. bit of luck i wished i had more often.

loom removed to verify wiring.
got new fuel lines and degreaser. cleaned the valley but didn't see a drain hole.
here is the IP screen:

it was pretty dirty and the hair was in there also.

both O-rings were replaced with Viton.

removed the screen to clean it. didn't know there was a magnet on the bottom.

cleaned the FFM, replaced the O-ring also on the heater cap.
my trans part for the 93 came in today, thanks 6.2 turbo, and starting putting that in.

 

[ak diesel driver]

I think you found your fuel issue LOL

 

[deejaaa]

only thing left is the sock!

 

[bison]

I think you found your fuel issue LOL

No kidding,i never seen them that dirty yet.

 

[Burning oil]

If you rub diesel on your chest it will make the hair grow, so is your screen tring to grow hair?

Speaking of rubing stuff
A Joke: A woman wants bigger boobs, her husband tells her to rub toilet paper between, them she says hows that gona work, he says I dont know , but it worked on your a$$.

 

[Brooklyn Tow]

So where is this "screen"?.....In the fuel mgr?

 

[NVW]

Louis, it's at the base of the inlet fitting in the IP. If you have read the FTB thread, the four holes that are drilled out are behind this screen.

 

[deejaaa]

correct. screen is held on by a small o-ring that is under the base of screen. grab screen base, twist while pulling down and it will slide off. clean from the inside out, the junk on mine was being forced through the screen.
remove the fuel inlet with a deep 15mm, 8 point socket. i replaced both o-rings also with viton.

 

[Koots]

Been running dexcool for the better part of the year now.

No issues.

Ran it in the 599 block before the optimizer.

No issues there either.

Iirc, the intake gasket failures were on an older GM v6 (3.4? Can't remember) when dexcool first came out and was caused by an incompatibility in the gasket with the dexcool. Not the fault of the coolant, GM's fault for putting it out the door that way. Once gaskets were changed, problem went away.

Of course, memory isn't quite what it used to be so some of those details could be wrong...


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The bad intake gaskets were a problem even in the Vortec 4.3, 5.0, 5.7 engines as well. I had an intake gasket leak and the subsequent mess it caused when mixed with the coolant was a mess. It inevitably clogged up most all of my cooling components.

The long life coolant is not maintenance free enough for me, especially to gain any benefit from it. I have no problem keeping All my engines cool with green stuff.

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

The bad intake gaskets were a problem even in the Vortec 4.3, 5.0, 5.7 engines as well. I had an intake gasket leak and the subsequent mess it caused when mixed with the coolant was a mess. It inevitably clogged up most all of my cooling components.

The long life coolant is not maintenance free enough for me, especially to gain any benefit from it. I have no problem keeping All my engines cool with green stuff.

DEX-COOL had absolutely nothing to do with the early vortec intake gasket failures. I swapped many over to the green stuff because teh owners blamed dex-cool, and they still broke! The VORTEC's gasket problem has been resolved though, and it was a SIMPLE fix. VICTOR-REINZ redesigned them and installed a metal sleeve in them for the bolt hole so that tehy couldn't be crushed. Teh gasket failure was due to using a plastic gasket with an o-ring emebedded seal in it and no metal sleeves to prevent it from being crushed. Many who replaced these gaskets also did not follow the specific torqueing sequence, and would crack the gaskets during torqueing. And even a slight .5 degree out of spec gasket surface would cause the plastic gaskets that did not give to fail as well.

 

[jmiller]

Was the intake gasket intact?

The burnt area is close enough to the EGR exhaust passage that a blown out or bad gasket could have burnt the wires. The uniformness of the burn is interesting. An electrical short should have blown one or two fuse and killed the engine. I would not expect enough sparking to start a fire before those fuses had blown.

Have you found a potential cause yet?

 

[deejaaa]

Was the intake gasket intact?

The burnt area is close enough to the EGR exhaust passage that a blown out or bad gasket could have burnt the wires. The uniformness of the burn is interesting. An electrical short should have blown one or two fuse and killed the engine. I would not expect enough sparking to start a fire before those fuses had blown.

Have you found a potential cause yet?

not that i can determine. intake gaskets were good. think it was from sitting in the fuel for so long. there was a leak, FFM, fuel lines, take your pick. gaskets/lines replaced. i cranked it hard, over 20-30 seconds when that happened and it did die on me. will check fuses because i didn't think about that. there is no EGR on this engine. thanks for the input.

 

[deejaaa]

still working on the 96 fuel issue but i got the 93 trans finished yesterday. drove it to work today and i should have done that mod 2 years ago.

 

[Brooklyn Tow]

What mod did you do?

 

[deejaaa]

put the jakes EPC plug and manual controller. it shifts like a manual valve body but without the expense and work. now i have no computer control to mess with.

 

[ak diesel driver]

never heard of that tell me more. is it like Leroy's optishift?

 

[deejaaa]

no. i will have to send pm i think.

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

never heard of that tell me more. is it like Leroy's optishift?

No, it works via a knob that you turn to select which gear you want manually and I believe it has a button to engage lock-up manually as well. Personally I don't think it is a good idea to run one on the street as it has NO way of modulating line pressure. This has SEVERAL downfalls to it. If you simply use a stcok trans and plug this box in, your trans will be stuck at at full stock line pressure since no power to it is max pressure I believe. When the trans runs at full pressure, it greatly reduces the flow of fluid to the cooler, and also every shift will be on the harshest setting possible since it is at full line pressure and your manually shifting it. This can actually lead to higher trans temps and reduced clutch life as well as broken input drums and such that the 4L80E is famous for doing since it is prone to pressure spikes even at stock line pressures. For competition use it is fine, but for street use I wouldn't use one.

 

[deejaaa]

not that at all. there's no knobs for the control of anything, it just plugs up in place where the output plug went. line pressure is high, right, but only a temp gauge/time will tell what really happens.
here's a link of what it is to see for yourself. cost isn't bad at all, less than 200.00 and easy to install. if you have ever dropped a pan for fluid/filter change, you can do this. also welded a pan drain bung on.
4L80E Full Manual Control and 4L80E Pressure Control Solenoid Eliminator Plug.
jakesperformance dot com/4L80E_Components.html
No other mods needed except a floor shifter.
tciauto dot com/tc/fast-gatetm-shifter.html
as a daily driver it isn't harsh at all, just like normal unless it's driven up in rpm. just wanted to get it on the road while not spending much cash on it. set drink down and talk with a phone earpiece while shifting and it's no inconvenience.
with the floor shifter, there will be no accidental shifts and i will make a console to house it in and junk the crappy factory one.