Went to install a LIM gasket today. When I went to place the manifold on, it slipped and i had to move it at least a 1/2 inch. Had another issue but won't go into it now.

Finished the torque process, and notice I can see the LIM gasket above the intake manifold by about 1/3 inch on the passenger side. On the driver side it is not visible. I can take a picture but don't think it will be visible in a pic.

I also think I may have pushed the silicone to much as i do not see it coming out where the coolant was leaking, not a good sign.

My guess is to wait 24 hours to let things cure, and then do a pressure test without hooking everything up.

Any thoughts/ comments would be appreciated.

Sounds like the gasket moved out of the alignment holes. Personally I would be pulling it again. I put a small dab of RTV in the alignment holes to hold the gasket in place.

Dan,

i think you are right. Do I also need a new gasket?

That you will have to look at when you pull them. You may have crushed the pins, or crushed the gasket. Wont know until you pull and look.

Just pulled the manifold back off. Excellent advice Dan, big thanks!

Let'* see some pictures of what you did.

A good way to hold those in place....A pen

I tried the pen method, and it turned bad. The manifold it the pen, the pen disappeared (thought it might of entered the engine). But what I did not realize is a 1/4 of the pen was left in the block threads. Total nightmare trying to get it out. I might try metal posts, but will stay away from a pen because the plastic is super cheap and they shatter when hit under pressure

Installed the manifold again.I can't believe I was willing to try to see if it worked, rather than just pull it and redo it. Pulling it again was very easy. I ran into problems installing it again, I needed a helper as the 4.3l engine goes back fairly deep and you have to line up fuel lines at the same time. I also likely overdid it with the RTV. We will find out tonight.

I had the left side gasket riding high again, what I noticed is that I could push the gasket down as long as the manifold was not bolted down. I did use Dan'* tip and put a drop of rtv on the mounting plugs. I am going to try and attached a few random pictures, but they are 5 meg each pic and I have not been able to reduce the size.

Here are a few pics. A couple of notes:

The distributor did not have a gasket when I oulled it, but the FelPro kit contained a gasket

Made a lot of mistakes and wasted a lot of time on this (still not done), but the best thing I did was label everthing with blue painters tape and put all screws and bolts back on whenever possible

Should off had extra RTV. The kit came with some, but the size of tube provided left no extra for error and was hard to get out of tiny tube

Hard a hard time cleaning up as i was working. I should of stopped every few hours and cleaned up.