I am replacing the upper intake on my daughter'* 2000 LeSabre tomorrow. Any tips on what NOT to do? Any helpful advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Dean

Just watch what your doing. Bleed the fuel lines, clean the gasket surfaces. Check the torque, then check again. Taking pictures helps in case you forget something. You can check the picture to help get it back together. Give yourself 2 or 3 hours.

The hardest part for me when I did the gaskets on my L36 motor was getting to the upper itself (removing fuel rail, tb, keeping track of what connected where). It was also my first time ever tearing into a motor and having to put it all back together. Your not going down as far as I did but you still have to get all the stuff off the top. Be very careful with the fuel rail though as I about bent mine a couple of times. If you're careful you can sit it on top of a towel over the airbox area without it really being in your way (and also not having to disconnect it and lose fuel). It never became a major issue, just a minor inconvenience to have to work around.

Having done it too many times for my own good. The best advice I can give is torque the new manifold in steps. Watch each manifold foot (where bolt passes through) as you torque. If you see any signs of it splitting or about to split, stop torquing that bolt right there. 89 inch lbs isn't much, but I've seen those feet break off at about 80inch lbs.

When that happens..it sucks. Go gentle on those manifold bolts.

Do not forget which bolt goes where. Since this is your first time i'd suggest some kind of labeling system. When my uncle and i did my LIM gasket swap, we had a little plastic container for the different groups of bolts. and x2 what dan said about taking pictures.