Hi All, hoping for some advice please.
I have a SBC Sumo and I fired it up for the first time in a few months for a short drive out.
I noticed when checking all the levels that there was fluid gathering around some of the bolts holding down the intake manifold. Checked it and doesn't smell of oil or fuel so definitely think it's coolant.
Obviously I'm going to have to take the carb, dizzy and manifold off to investigate.
Just wanted some advice and things to look for please, as I'm assuming I need to replace the manifold gasket?
Also I read a few things online about you have to tighten the intake manifold bolts in a certain order as well as well as apply a certain amount of torque when tightening?
This will be the first time I'll be taking the manifold intake off, so any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Pics linkedhttps://1drv.ms/a/c/7ab2c5ea435fd528/EijVX0PqxbIggHqeFwAAAAAB9F-JRuQLxHlD73OhKKWb2Q (https://1drv.ms/a/c/7ab2c5ea435fd528/EijVX0PqxbIggHqeFwAAAAAB9F-JRuQLxHlD73OhKKWb2Q) of what I could see.
Thanks in advance,
David
What I would do first is to find out the correct tightening sequence and re-torque to spec before removing
the manifold, you will probably still need to remove other bits to access all the required nuts or bolts .
It's worth checking before steaming straight in, the hardware may have just loosened a bit over time due
to heat expansion.
Chris.
Thanks Chris, that's a good point!
Silly question - is it easy to work out what spec the manifold is?
I don't see it in my bill of sale info the previous owner gave me.
Thanks again for the reply,
Dave
Hi,
I had the same issue on our SBC intake manifold bolt in that location. The bolt protrudes into the cylinder head, into an area that has oil circulating and this oil works its way up the bolt thread by capillary action and then settles as shown in you pics. This happens on both sides. No matter how much you tighten the bolt it does not stop the oil working its way up. Our cure was to remove the bolt, clean, degrease and dry the bolt hole and the bolt. Then apply a small amount of thread lock to the top part of the bolt so that it would seal the thread. This was done about three years ago and no more oil is appearing there now.
Hope that this helps.
Regards, Don
Quote from: Don350 on Jul 01, 2025, 09:30 PMHi,
I had the same issue on our SBC intake manifold bolt in that location. The bolt protrudes into the cylinder head, into an area that has oil circulating and this oil works its way up the bolt thread by capillary action and then settles as shown in you pics. This happens on both sides. No matter how much you tighten the bolt it does not stop the oil working its way up. Our cure was to remove the bolt, clean, degrease and dry the bolt hole and the bolt. Then apply a small amount of thread lock to the top part of the bolt so that it would seal the thread. This was done about three years ago and no more oil is appearing there now.
Hope that this helps.
Regards, Don
Loctite 577 is your friend here. Designed to seal threads.