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quick help on LIM

M

mainjet

New member
I am doing th elower intake manifold gasket again. I used thread sealer last time but alldata says use thread locker. I am in the middle of this and I don't have a lot of time to go searching. So could I get a quick difinitive answer on locker or sealer?

Also, supercharger bolts, I guess nothing is used on those bolts?
 


we talking LIM bolts right?

If it was me I wouldnt even use anything, but tighten everything down to what it should be and your fine, or just snug them up good enough if you dont got a torque wrench.
 
Shady places will "fix" something while breaking something else on purpose, in hopes the car gets towed back to them.
This one place ruined the engine in my buddys Malibu then he took his replacement car there and they hit all his rotors with a hammer and told him they were bad.
 
Durk Diggler said:
Shady places will "fix" something while breaking something else on purpose, in hopes the car gets towed back to them.
This one place ruined the engine in my buddys Malibu then he took his replacement car there and they hit all his rotors with a hammer and told him they were bad.
Click to expand...
wrong thread guy lol.
 


I use GM pipe sealant with PTFE. Another suitable sealant is either a permatex equivalent or a pipe sealant from home depot.

The reason to seal these bolts is because they go into oil and coolant jackets on the head. Those fluids can seep up the threads and onto the LIM itself in short time if the bolts are clean w/o anything on them.

Ask me how I know this. :D
 
Thanks Bill and I think I know how you know:D

What I did was use Thread sealant with PTFE on the center ones because I could see they went through to the inside of the head. Then I used thread locker on the others because I could see they just bottomed out.

There seems to be a fair amount of descrepancy on this issue from reputable sources. Everything from don't use anything, to thread sealant, to thread locker. I decided to use two of the three choices:th_winking:
 
Some of the FSM years say threadlockers, some don't mention anything. Some of the techs say to use either or. I am going off what works and has been passed on to me by a good tech that I know.
 
Yea, that's what I was noticing from alldata and from different threads while searching - different methods. So I guess you do what works for you and that was what I was looking for, what works.

I just could't take something with a know leaking issue like a LIM, that only gets 11 ft. lbs of torque, and not put anything on it.

The first time I did it I used thread sealant on all of them. But that crap sucks to clean off the bolts.

Even in the video that has been posted showing how to do this repair, the guy clearly puts thread sealant on the bolts. But the text that was on the video while he was doing it said apply thread locker. Go figure.

Anyway, thanks to all for the replys.
 
Well...you see that 11ft lbs was one FSM year. 13ft lbs is another I've seen. The 11ft lbs was originally for the plastic LIM gasket w/o metal sleeves. The 13ft lbs I believe was the metal sleeved version. Me, I figure there's a tsb that I didn't look up that would tell me to use 15ft lbs on the aluminuns and have never had an issue. However the bigger thing here is...I've never had one loosen on it's own. Leak yes..loosen no.

So add the sealant/locktite and either of those should keep it from leaking.
 


I kind of do the same. I get them to the torque and then depending on the situation I give it a little bit more. With the GM gaskets I felt much more like I could do that then with the Fel-Pro because the FP rubber stood up so high that I didn't want to crush it down to much. With the GM gaskets it seems much safer to give it a little extra since the carrier is substantially thicker and the rubber doesn't stick up as much.

But it's done and back on the road as of yesterday. So all is good. For the moment... LOL
 
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