BulldogMJP

Just discovered a coolant leak. It's seeping from the valve cover gasket right hand side close to the front. It's seeping down on to the engine and then down to the oil filter and so on.

Any suggestions. Is this valve cover gasket easy to replace?

BulldogMJP

Or could it be from intake manifold? Jeep drives great. Dont think its head gasket failure ,no white smoke or milky coolant/oil.

jkuforu

Is it coolant or oil? You are saying coolant leak but saying change valve cover. Under the valve cover is only oil. If it is coolant the look at he intake manifold gasket of cracked intake manifold.

BulldogMJP

Will investigate more today and get better pictures

BulldogMJP

Yeah looks like its coming up from where the intake manifold meets. Is it easy to pull the manifold?

Is there a write up anywhere? I've done them plenty of time when I had an old porsche but this engine seems much busier.

Cheers

Mister K

I'd had the same problem - a slow coolant leak for months on my 2007 at 160,000km. It wasn't as visible as yours but the smell was annoying. 2 weeks ago I replaced the lower intake manifold gasket following the directions in the factory manual (you can find this online), but with a couple of changes to the process:
1. I removed the lower rad hose to drain the some of the coolant out of the block because I couldn't easily access the drain plug on the side of the block without removing the dipstick and the bolts looked pretty corroded. This worked fine for me - I didn't end up with coolant in the lifter gallery when I removed the intake.
2. It's a bit of a pain getting to the bolts holding the lower end of the EGR valve. I loosened them but left them engaged so I didn't have to re-install them aftewards blindly.
3. You'll need the special tool for disconnecting the fuel rail. Removing the injector assembly was difficult - took a lot of working but I managed to do it without damaging anything. Re-installing it wasn't much easier than removal.
4. There was quite a lot of corrosion and crud on the surfaces of the heads and the lower intake which I removed using a dremel and brass brush wheel before replacing the gasket. Make sure you cover up the top of the engine when you're doing this to stop dirt from getting into the lifter gallery.
5. I added a small amount of RTV around the coolant ports at the front and rear on both sides of the steel gasket. There was some noticeable pitting on the aluminum surface where the gasket is supposed to seal which was probably the cause of the leak in the first place, so the RTV will fill this in.
6. I left the engine for a day before re-filling the coolant to allow the RTV to set. Not sure if this is necessary.
7. If you hear a big sucking sound when you re-start the engine it's the brake booster vacuum line on the back of the upper intake which you've forgotton to re-install.
8 Probably a good idea to change the oil shortly after the job to get rid of any bits of crud which have made their way into the engine.
The whole job was a pain - took me a total of about 8 hours, but at least I have some confidence that the job was done right. No leaks now.

Good luck!

BulldogMJP

All fixed. Thanks for the help. I also finally got my hands on the factory manual. Still need to change the oil , prob do that tomorrow. Thanks again

101gargoyles

I just had the intake gasket replaced at 147,000 km.
Mechanic did research and found it to be occurring in JKs but not in the Chrysler vans with the same engine block.

yo_marc

Darn. I've got dust collecting up in that area of the engine.

I recently did the water pump in my JK. The gasket was junk, and gasket surfaces on the water pump and block had lots of surface corrosion. After seeing that, I started to worry about the condition of the intake manifold gasket.

Hope mine stays as is....