I did the plenum pan repair this weekend and just want to thank Steve05ram360 for all the information on the process. The service manual too, was priceless. I searched and studied this site for about 3 weeks before doing the repair and found so much good information from Steve and others.

My initial inspection through the throttle body showed a film of oil on the plenum pan, and with the gross oil consumption and enging pinging, I figured it was time. I was right. The plenum gasket was blown in three places on each long side and I probably could have scavenged 3-4 oz. of oil from the intake manifold. What a leak! My son helped too, as he usually drives the truck and we snapped one manifold bolt off like it was made of plastic. But it relented after a few hours soaking in penetrating oil and an easy-out. While I had the manifold off, we replaced the distributor cap and rotor, then reassembled.

But the engine wouldn't idle and ran rough at higher speeds, so at this point I wasn't sure which rabbit to chase - the manifold, or the distributor. [:@] A hunch told me to look further into the ignition system because of some corrosion on the old cap. A couple of the spark plug wires were severely rusted, so I pulled all the plugs and wires and put in new ones. Engine fired right up and purred like a fat old cat.

Changed the oil to check the consumption rate now. We'll see. But there was no doubt the repair was needed. Pinging is 99% eliminated.

So thanks again to Steve and all the others that have posted info on this repair. You really can do it yourself if you have enough info, tools and time. It never hurts to have the help of others that have gone before you and are willing to take the time to help out.

And now just a bit of payback. If you ever see a penetrating oil call KROIL, get it. I've never seen it in any store, a friend of mine who works at a local mill gave me two cans of it. It is to PB Blaster what PB Blaster is to WD 40. Stinks like crazy, but it is the most magical liquid I've ever seen outside an ABC store.

 

Awesome, I'm happy to hear things went well. the learning experience your son got and the time spent together during all the knuckle busting is priceless IMO. Hopefully he'll have the confidence to try something else in the future. I'm assuming you used the DIY writeup in the forum?

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Yup. Kept your DIY and the PDF manual running on my laptop in the garage. Can't tell you how many times I ran back and forth to look something up. The TSB on torque procedures was also helpful. Thanks again for all you obviously do on this forum.