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Dodge Dakota
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8/02/2007
15:10:23
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 Subject: Intake Gasket
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Message:
Yes, my '01 5.9 had the dreaded intake gasket failure. It was eating a little oil. Sure enough, oil in the plenum. I'v been putting it off for a while, finally got time to do it. The job is not fun, and took me quite a while to do. Fortunatly, it's not technically difficult to do, just a pain. I generally work on Fords. That's what I've had, and my track car is a Ford. So I'll compare things to a Ford. Here's some observations:
1. Dodge did a nice job of keeping the fastners pretty much the same. Nearly all all the A/C and alternator bracket bolts are 9/16", a couple are 1/2". Ford tends to mix and match in this area. What's really frustrating is Ford will throw in a couple of metrics to really get your dander up. For this job, you only need 3 differant sized sockets. There is one bolt hiding under a pulley that's a little tough to get at.
2. The intake manifold gaskets are not held in with goo. Made it real easy to clean the gasket surfaces.
3. All that wiring, vacuum hoses, and whatnot appear to be a real mess. It would appear that getting it all hooked up correctly could be a challange. But each connector is differant. You'de have to try real hard to get them mixed up. Even the vacuum hoses.
4. After 6 years and 90K+ miles, some of the plastic bits are a little brittle. I managed to break a few. Fortunatly, I have some high strength epoxy that seems to have done a nice job of repairing them. We'll see how that goes.
5. The water pump bypass hose sits underneath the A/C and alternator bracket. That large bracket is kind of a pain to remove. I thought it was wise to replace that while I was in there.
6. I did need a special tool to disconnect the fuel line. I tried getting it loose with small screwdrivers. Didn't work out so well. Stop and NAPA and get the tool for $11.
7. The battery was disconnected for about 24 hours. But the radio pre-sets are still there. That was nice.
8. I didn't have to touch the distributer.
9. The Dakota is small enough that you don't really need to remove the fan and shroud. You do spend a lot of time kneeling on the bumper, though. Be sure to pad that.
10. It's no wonder the truck doesn't make a lot of hp. Those intake ports are pretty tiny. If you want to make power, you definatly need new heads.
11. The intake manifold is a pretty rough casting. For high rpm power, you would want to spend some time smoothing out the port entrances. I didn't bother, since it's a pretty rare day when this truck sees >5,000 rpm's.
12. There is very minimal water passage in the intake manifold. And no exhaust crossover. But the bottom of the manifold appears to get some heat. If you wanted to decrease your intake temp, you need some sort of heat barrier coating under there.
Job done, and I'm a better man for it :) I'v got a 16 hour drive with a trailer at the end of the month. We'll see if there's an improvement. If nothing else, I won't have to carry oil with me.
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