My baby took a dive!

[Mel87]

Well apparently the GM 3.1 and the GM 350 are notorious for bad intake manifold gaskets. Well the time came for me, at 81,000 miles she started leaking oil pretty bad, and my coolant system was polluted with the oil mixing in the antifreeze. Took it to the shop and they said the intake manifold gasket went up... I kinda laughed when they told me that. But it was an $1100 repair, along with a complete coolant system flush and fresh oil. GM should have recalled the shitty design of the gaskets.

[urbex]

I hear ya... Spencer and I are in the process of repairing mine right now.

[19Cutlass94]

$1100 is pretty damn steep man. What are they charging for labor nowadays?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone in some random spot of Texas.

[virtuetovice]

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU over a grand?!?!!?

 

 

I have full confidence that if you know how to use hand tools and follow instructions, you can grab a factory service manual and the supplies to do this yourself!

[LumiLTZ]

$1100 is pretty damn steep man. What are they charging for labor nowadays?

 

Yep, labor is ridiculous where I am in the DC area if you have to take your car in for something major. Been a few years since I've set foot in a shop needing work other than tires/alignment/inspection now that I have a place to work on my cars so I can't recall offhand what hourly rates are these days... but I'll guess at probably somewhere around $90-100/hr at an independent shop, dealer of course a bit higher. I had some pretty expensive repair bills back when I was in a situation of living in an apartment where parking-lot-wrenching was highly frowned upon. What sucked more was everyone I knew down here was pretty much in the same situation, so I had no place to do my own wrenching.

[j_mezz]

Sounds like you got a bargain though, my dealer wanted $2500! FFFFUUUUU was my response and I was able to work my way through it no problem. There's a lot of info about this repair on this site (and on the web in general) since it's so common. Kicking myself now for not going with the 3400 top end swap but I had never been in that deep before.

Edited January 11, 2013 by j_mezz

[94 olds vert]

Intake manifolds are easy to do especially on. 3.1l.

[Mel87]

Labor in MD is $86 an hour, they claimed it was a 9 hour job, and since im restoring my truck still I couldn't drive it as a backup, and working full time I didn't have the free time to attempt the fix.

[urbex]

9 hour? I thought it was a lot less than that.

[WhatTheFehl]

I'm pretty sure my dad paid less than $250 to have the intake and gaskets done on his 3800. And I didn't think it was much more difficult to do a 3100.

[White93z34]

I think is a slightly more time consuming job then a 3800, last 3100 intake gasket job I did took me 2 sittings to do where 3800s are a 3-4 hour affair for me.

[GtpKo]

I hear ya, I can't even change my own oil where I'm at now. Landlord has one of those driveways painted to look like stone. He's very fussy about keeping it pristine.

 

First time I did an intake gasket(LIM) on my 3800, it took me 18 hours. Mostly due to the fact that it was about 20 deg out, my hands were freezing, and I cleaned meticulously with a Q-tip.

 

So I paid myself about $60/hr....?

[Euro]

Well apparently the GM 3.1 and the GM 350 are notorious for bad intake manifold gaskets. .

 

As well as the 3400, 3500, 3800, 4.3

 

 

That's a crazy price though, but I guess it makes sense with inflation and shit. When I had my GP's LIM done probably 6 years ago I think the invoice was $800 something. But I paid $100 with my GM warranty

[rich17]

Fick I did my 3100 in 4 hours. In the cold. Drinking beer.

[rich_e777]

Hardest part i see about the job is getting all the push rods and rocker arms back into the right place, and the manuals probably make this simple task into something more difficult than what it really is.

 

I cant wait to get my LIM off and clean that SOB out real good. When i had my injectors out i could see alll kinds of crap in there. 3100 top swaps require OBDII conversion correct?

[jake91]

Paid $1,200 to do head gaskets up on the ga but that was through a private mechanic I know. Paid $700 to do the intake gaskets at a shop on the gp