I started the LIM and UIM gasket replacement today. I should finish tomorrow or Sunday, depending on how much I like working in 115 degree heat. The disassembly went smoother than I had anticipated, and most of what I thought I would find, I did, and then some. My EGR port is not degraded much at all, which is a shock at 200k miles. I saw no evidence of major leakage in that area, which doesn't surprise me since I have seen none of the telltales of it. I was more concerned about the gasket areas. The upper gasket looked decent, but the lower intake was coated in sludge, oil, and coolant. The two "hidden" bolts were submerged in pools of oil and coolant. The coolant passages were clogged with sludge, which was what I was kind of hoping to see. Hopefully this will take care of my chronic overheating problem. The significant oil leakage was a surprise. I knew I had an oil leak but I didn't think the LIM gasket was the culprit. Now with all this, it is clear that it is at least contributing and may be the entire problem. The LIM gaskets looked like absolute garbage. I will post pics tomorrow.

Hopefully this process will take care of some issues I've been having and maybe even improve the efficiency of this car some with a good TB cleaning. A few more MPG wouldn't hurt my feelings.

Good work. It sounds like it wasn't too bad considering the mileage. Working in 100*+ heat isn't fun, I know

Awaiting the pics.

Photos of the operation before I started cleaning things up. The old gaskets have already been removed from the block and the LIM here. They look very much like every other failed LIM gasket that have been posted here numerous times.

Cleaning is most of the way done. It appears a piece of the coolant elbow fell into the LIM. I doubt I'm the first person who has had that problem since the degradation of mine looks just like everyone else'*. Did anyone come up with a whiz bang method for getting it back out?

Oh, and for anyone wondering, a dishwasher makes a great parts washer for those last few hard to reach areas on a LIM. Just don't tell the wife... .

Looks like she is ready to go back together.

It'* pretty crazy how dirty those things can get, eh?

By the way, you may want to consider resizing some of those pictures. It'* tough to see them when you have to scroll from one side of the image to the other. Just my opinion, though.

Hope it goes back together without any problems, and I also hope you're using the GM aluminum lower intake gaskets to keep them fail-proof in the future.

Also, remember that when you start it up and run it, it may take an entire day for the cooling system to clear itself of all air. If the level in your overflow bottle goes down at first (and if you don't have any obvious external leaks), do some driving and wait about a day to see if the level stabilizes before you get anxious and tear it apart.

Everything went back together fairly easily and the car is running great except for one problem. The accelerator cable is damaged, either from this operation or because of prior wear, or both. I have a new cable, but haven't had any time to install it or even look at what it will take to install. Has anyone replaced one of these? It looks like its just a bunch of clips holding it in place and not terribly difficult to do, but any heads up woudl be appreciated.

When I refilled the radiator, after flushing and back flushing both the motor and the radiator, I put in a cleaning solution in an effort to clean out the radiator and improve the cooling ability of the car. It is working since the fluid in the system is currently dark brown (clear when I put it in) after a few days of driving. I will flush this stuff out next weekend and refill with proper coolant, and hopefully see some improvements.

Looking good...glad to hear it'* basically done.

On the coolant..You probably will see a nice improvement...I did.

Got the cable replaced today. Why is the weather always the hottest on the weekends I have to do car work? Anyway, not too difficult, although reaching the clip that holds the cable in the firewall from inside is a bit of a pain. I finally got sick of trying to get it out all gentle like, so, since the cable assembly was going out and into the trash anyway, I got a vice grip and banked on the notion that the clip on the cable assembly would break before the firewall would. Turns out I was right and I was able to brute force it out from the engine side. The old cable was definitely sticking prior to the UIM/LIM repair. It feels smoother now than I can ever recall it being. I also found a "me so stupid" in the form of a disconnected vacuum line that I missed last weekend. I can't believe that that could be like that for a week with no Check Engine light to show for it. This car seems to be very resistant to turning that light on when there is actually a problem. It likes to come on for minor, undetectable issues, but not large obvious ones.