Not intending to stab too deeply: It's a poor personal choice to know things you haven't put out the effort to learn. It makes life difficult for you and anyone foolish enough to trust you.

 

Notice that even in the TSB, they replace the gaskets, and the bolts, but do not replace the pan itself.

 

Also to not distract too much from the OP's thread...

This is an original plenum bolt bottomed out in my plenum...


It is proof that insufficient clamping force is what causes the gasket to slip. Shorter bolt clamps tighter without bottoming. Either grind off the unthreaded portion of bolt or get 1/4-20 3/4 bolts. Sorry for any hijack.

 

Anyone else remember when people just argued whether or not the intake manifold bolts were TTY or not?

 

your fine, so if I ground down the bolts or replaced them with shorter bolts I could get away with not doing the plenum plate?

 

If it's not there yet, that photo belongs in the End-all Be-all plenum thread for sure. Not because installing an aluminum plate is a bad thing in and of itself -- if no ancillary harm comes of it the aluminum is as harmlessly pointless as a throttle body spacer, and if a guy wants it he should have it. It's just better for humanity if more of its members have a reality based view of the world.

Ain't no magic in a pickup truck made of rock and stinky goo. It's all perfectly understandable.

 

Done. Edited the first post, section dealing with the cause. He had it as dissimilar metals. Not the case. (as has been proved several times over the last couple years)

 

Yes. You can grind off most of the unthreaded tip of each bolt and it will work perfectly. For prep, clean both the plenum and steel plate mating surfaces down to bare metal. A scotchbrite wet with wd40 works well.

Wipe lightly but thoroughly with alcohol. Coat completely both sides of a new gasket with a thin layer of Black oil resistant Permatex rtv and install to spec according to the service manual.

I put on a rubber glove and massage the rtv all over the gasket leaving no dry spots but no excess to splooge off into the engine or intake.

 

Dude, you're what makes the 2nd gen forum what it is.

 

A wretched hive of scum and villainy?