2001 Ford Taurus with Vulcan V6.
Fresh oil stain near the rear bank valve cover gasket. To replace it, you have to remove the upper intake manifold, fair enough. To take otu the upper intake manifold, you have to unbolt it from the throttle body, and the EGR that is bolted to it and the exhaust manifold via metal pipes.
Stuff I want to complain about:
1) The mating surface between the cylinder head and the lower intake manifold has a step of about 0.5mm to it. The valve cover gasket has a pad on this step and you are suppose to put a drop of gasket dressing the size of about 6mm on the spot. The instruction comes with the PermaDry gasket say not to use any chemical adhesive on it. How is it going to seal the surface well?
2) The plastic upper intake manifold has EGR mount to it from the firewall side, and the EGR is mounted to the exhaust manifold with stiff metal piping. Not really easy to service if you have to wiggle the upper intake out.
3) There is a nut that mount the throttle body to the intake manifold covered by a bracket, then another nut that tighten down the bracket on the nut. It looks like this:
bolt -- intake -- throttle body -- nut -- bracket -- nut.
This makes it impossible to unbolt the intake manifold from the throttle body, unless you go down there to remove the entire bracket.
Maybe it is typical for a V6 engine in FWD, I'm not sure if I like it coming from a 4 banger, at least from a serviceability point of view. Well, at least the rear spark plugs are easy to change without removing the intake manifold.
Fresh oil stain near the rear bank valve cover gasket. To replace it, you have to remove the upper intake manifold, fair enough. To take otu the upper intake manifold, you have to unbolt it from the throttle body, and the EGR that is bolted to it and the exhaust manifold via metal pipes.
Stuff I want to complain about:
1) The mating surface between the cylinder head and the lower intake manifold has a step of about 0.5mm to it. The valve cover gasket has a pad on this step and you are suppose to put a drop of gasket dressing the size of about 6mm on the spot. The instruction comes with the PermaDry gasket say not to use any chemical adhesive on it. How is it going to seal the surface well?
2) The plastic upper intake manifold has EGR mount to it from the firewall side, and the EGR is mounted to the exhaust manifold with stiff metal piping. Not really easy to service if you have to wiggle the upper intake out.
3) There is a nut that mount the throttle body to the intake manifold covered by a bracket, then another nut that tighten down the bracket on the nut. It looks like this:
bolt -- intake -- throttle body -- nut -- bracket -- nut.
This makes it impossible to unbolt the intake manifold from the throttle body, unless you go down there to remove the entire bracket.
Maybe it is typical for a V6 engine in FWD, I'm not sure if I like it coming from a 4 banger, at least from a serviceability point of view. Well, at least the rear spark plugs are easy to change without removing the intake manifold.