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| Intake Manifold |
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Alright...I need to preface this description with a warning and disclaimer. This job is relatively hard and VERY involved. It will take a LONG time. I would very much suggest to anyone who hasn't done this before to get someone who has, or at least someone with a lot of mechanical proficiency and Saturn knowledge, to help them. In addition, I had a LOT of help doing this job, and probably wouldn't have done it correctly without it. I also learned a whole lot of shit yesterday doing this job, so I might have some details of the process wrong or incomplete in this step-by-step, just because I forgot or whatever. So for REAL, get a Chilton's manual and another person to help you out on this one. It's pretty crazy. Definitely doable and not very stressful, but definitly a lot of shit to get done and quite time-consuming. The materials you need for this job are as follows: intake manifold, intake manifold to head gasket, throttle body gasket, lots of coolant, cam cover gasket (if yours really sucks), LOTS of tools, food and water so you don't die in the process, and about seven hours.
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Before you start this job, you want to kill the fuel pressure by removing the fuel pump fuse inside the car and stalling the car out, like we did in the compression tests page. Also, drain the coolant system from the radiator. To do so, unscrew the coolant resevoir cap and get under the car so you're looking up through a small hole in the air dam towards the A/C compressor. At the bottom corner of the radiator will be a green piece of plastic that you can turn with some needle nose pliers. Turn it so it's straight up and down and then get your head out of the way and pull it outwards from the radiator. Make sure to have a bucket or something to catch the fluid in, as it will start to pour out. Also, be careful, it might be hot. Now, you want to remove the air intake and battery. I didn't remove the battery, but to do so, take off the negative battery cable first, then the positive. Then, remove the three (I think) bolts that are connected to the battery tie-down. It's the black piece of metal keeping the battery in place. Just look for them. You'll see them. If you are doing this job and don't know how to get the air intake off, ummmm...you're gonna need some serious help. While one guy is doing that, the other guy can remove the serpentine belt. Remember, the tensioner bolt is 14mm, and you want to rotate it towards the front bumper to remove the belt. For more instruction on how to do this, see the header page. Once the belt is off, you need to remove the power steering pump. To do so, you have to use a 10mm socket on a small ratchet. Oh yeah, if you have a front strut bar on, take it off. Now, stick your fingers through one of the holes in the power steering pump pulley and rotate it until you feel a bolt head. Unsrew it and pull it out until you can't find any more. There are five of these, I think. Two of them are different from the rest. The realllly long one goes in the upper right hand hole. The second longest goes right below and to the right of that one, and sticks into the head. Also, there is a bracket that you might need to unscrew or move out of the way that can be located from the bottom of the car. It's pretty eay to see. It's a black piece of steel, like a small, bent tube. Also, whil you're down there, connected to the same stud as that bracket is another brace that lends stability to the intake manifold. Take that one off, too. It's not hard. Just unbolt it.
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Next off is the EGR. You can see it circled in red to the right. There are two 10 or 13mm bolts that connect it to the tower thing it's on. Remove the sensor from the top of the EGR, take out the bolts, and pull it off. There's also a bracket that's located right behind it, and is held on by two 10mm bolts. Unbolt and remove that, too. There may be a support brace that goes from the throttle body to the EGR, but I broke mine off a long time ago. If it's there' take it off, along with the throttle body. For instructions on removing the throttle body, see the throttle body page.
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While removing the throttle body, you're gonna be taking off the vacuum line on top, so while you're at it, remove the vacuum harness from the intake manifold, too. It's held on by two 10mm (I think) bolts on the front top of the intake manifold. Also, pull out the PCV valve from the cam cover. It's the tube that makes a right angle into the cam cover, and is located directly next to the oil cap.
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Next off are the injector sensors and the fuel rail. Remove the injector sensors like we did on the compression tests page. Then, unbolt the fuel rail. There are three bolts holding it onto the intake manifold. When they are out, you also need to disconnect it from the test port and fuel line, which you can see to the right. It's the thing with the cap on it. There's one bolt holding them to the engine, which you need to unscrew. After that screw is out, you have to pull the fuel rail out of the fuel line, near the test port. To disconnect it, squeeze the two tabs in where the fuel rail meets the fuel line and pull the rail out of the line. Then, just pull the injectors diagonally up and out of their holes in the manifold. They'll come out.
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When you get the fuel rail out, at the end of each injector, you should see a round, doughnut-shaped O-ring. Each injector must have one, or they'll leak all to shit. If one is missing, it's either stuck inside the manifold or it's on the ground. Two of mine ended up on the ground. In any event, find them.
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Next off is the MAP sensor. It's located on the top of the manifold, right next to the power steering pump. It's held on by two 7mm bolts. Undo them and pull it straight up and out of the manifold. Next, you need to remove all the hoses and shit that are connected to the intake manifold. There should be three of them. The one on the back of the manifold is a bitch to get off, so we just took it off the firewall near the brake booster instead. If the lines don't want to come off, use some kind of lubricant, pry the end of the tube up a bit from the metal it's attached to, spray the shit into the end of the tube, and wiggle it around. It will eventually come off. Also, with the de-airation tube on the top of the manifold, you'll need to pull the tube out of it's other two attachments to the firewall that run above the power steering pump. Just stick a flathead screwdriver into the notch at the bottom of each attacher and push. It will come open and you can move the tube out of the way. After that, get the power steering pump as far up and to the side of the manifold as you can. It's actually zip-tied to something, but you can cut that from the bottom of the car. It also has a steel like attached to it, so don't snap that.
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Next off is the cam cover. We took this off simply for clearance so get the manifold out. I thought it was pretty necessary, but if you know another way or something, feel free. Pull out the spark plug wires and unscrew the 13 (I think) 10mm or so bolts that hold the cover down. They have these rubber gaskets on them, so when you have a bolt unscrewed all the way, you have to pull it out of the hole with a bit of force. It's kind weird, but you'll get it.
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Now for the fun part...unbolting the manifold from the head. There are seven 10mm (I think) bolts holding the two together, three on the top, three on the bottom, and one directly on the driver's side. Six of them are easy to get at, either from the top or the bottom, just try it out. The seventh, cirlced in red to the right, is the bitch of the operation. It's almost impossible to remove. To get at it, we loosened the torque axis mount nuts so the engine sagged down onto the other two mounts, giving us a little more space. Then, with a small ratchet and small extension, you have to get under the car and try to reach it. It helps if one person holds the extenstion still from the top while the other does the ratcheting from under the car. It's a fucking whore of a job, but it will come out eventually. Now that everything is disconnected, it's finally time to pull the manifold off. However, it's a pretty delicate process. The idea is to break the gasket seal by wiggling the manifold up and down, and then to push the runners of the manifold as far down as possible. When that's done, try and rotate the top of the manifold out towards the front of the car. It will take some wiggling and shoving, but if you go by that basic game plan, it comes out without too much trouble. Make sure to push the injector sensors and vacuum harness through the holes in the runners before you yank the manifold completely out of the car to avoid tearing them out of their mounts. After the manifold is out of the car, you need to use a razor blade or other scraping instrument to remove the remnants of the gasket that are still on the head surface. When you've gotten off as much as you can, wipe down the surface with a rag with some acetone on it, and do the same for the gasket surface on the new manifold. To reinstall, you just essentially do what you did to get it off, in reverse. There aren't any special things you need to do or anything. Just hook everything back up like it was before. However, when you go to start the car again, turn it to ON for a minute to let the fuel pressure build up to normal before you crank the engine. The computer might go crazy on you for a minute, but it'll adapt just fine.
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I would like to thank Chris Utman for all his help with this project. He did this job the weekend before we did mine, but BY HIMSELF. What a fucking beast. He's got one of the prettiest wagons I've seen, too. Nitrous Saturn SW2...righto.
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