Hi. I'm hoping someone here has some experience with a problem I'm having. I recently had the intake manifold replaced in my 2003 Suburban with 5.3. Today I noticed a bunch of oil spots on the driveway. I peaked under there and the bottom of the engine is covered with oil. It looks like it's running down from somewhere above. My question is if the intake was not installed properly could this be a probable cause? Truck has never leaked at all. Thanks.

 

Maybe the gasket was not properly installed or the bolts hadn't been torched under the factory specs. The worst possible reason is the motor head with problem.

 

The thing is I don't know much about Vortec, is there even any oil to leak from an intake in this design...not sure.

 

Well, when you replace the gaskets from the intake manifold, if they haven't properly installed can be one of the reasons of the oil leak. Se the picture down here. Another reason for the oil leak, that I have forgot to mention could be from the vapor pipe (second picture).
Let me know if you have any doubts to help you.

 

Thanks for the info. Well, there's a blizzard going on here so I can't really take the time to look under there myself. I brought it back to the shop that replaced the manifold and he says he cleaned it up with brake cleaner and see's some little leaks in other places but nothing big. He also says there's no way it could be from the intake change as there's no oil under there.... This truck has never leaked at all before so I am stumped. I guess I'll have to wait till warmer weather and try to see if I can locate where it's coming from. I hate to be mistrustful but it's kind of a coincidence that it's covered in oil after the intake was changed. I guess anything is possible.

 

Yes, unfortunatelly I have to agree with you. But, try to do a weekly check at the oil level of the engine until you have time to take a good check, if possible, put the photos of the engine to have another suggestion.

 

Well I brought it back to the shop that replaced the intake and he took it apart and says the oil pump drive housing is leaking. As I said I don't know enough about these vortecs to know if this is a result of the intake change, or just coincidence. Bottom line is he wants $300 to fix it and I'm kind of forced into it one way or the other.

 

I didn't realize that the Vortec engines had an external oil pump that could leak externally. Very interesting.

 

I didn't know that also. I was looking at the service repair manual but I couldn't find were it is, well it has a lot of pages I'll keep looking for it to know if it was a coincidence or not.

 

Well he replaced the cam sensor, valley pan gasket, and a new intake gasket again. I had to take a 700 mile trip with it. Now I'm 700 miles away from home and it's leaking worse than ever. If I park for a half hour there are several drops on the ground. I don't get it. This is supposedly a pretty good shop doing this work.....