I've worked with the LIM on 3100/3400 in the N-Bodies. Piece of cake. I won't touch it on a Venture van. Too much of a pain (as you noted).

As mentioned, just be careful if you end up doing it on the side. Great service to offer people, but there are people who can drive you nuts if they feel you did something (when in reality you did not). It becomes a game of "you touched it last".

 

wanna do my upper and lower intakes if i drive over? lol

 

I did mine on my venture van. It was a pain, there is no room under the hood for sure. This tool may make the job easier. Amazon.com: Push Rod Remover for GM V6 2.8L, 3.1L and 3.4L Engines: Automotive. Also I wanted to mention that this is a pretty common repair now and I have noticed a few small shops (non dealer) are doing this repair for like 250. So it anyone is afraid to tackle this repair on there own shop around and maybe you can find a deal.

 

A lot of people point the finger at Dex cool for why the gaskets fail. In reality, nylon was a crappy gasket material. I've had the gaskets fail on cars that never ran Dex, it's hot fluid passing through, that's all. Luckily now they make a aluminum gasket that should solve these problems.

When you driving over? lol. Between the gas cost and my bill you might wanna check locally lol :p

 

I took mine to a small non-dealer shop just to verify it was my intake gaskets and not something more serious. They quoted me a preliminary $800 to start but would probably end up being more than that.

I just ordered my Fel-Pro permadry gasket set(with valve cover and egr gaskets with miscellaneous o-rings, thermostat, a distributor o-ring, and 6 AC Delco plugs for $105 shipped at Rock Auto with a $5 off discount code...thought that was a pretty good deal. Should be here by this weekend to tear into it.

Thanks for all the help leading up to this, and I apologize for all the bitching. Was just worried it was a head gasket, rather than my intake gaskets since I couldn't physically see coolant leaking. But non-the-less time to change them out and hopefully that is the last of my coolant quirks with this car.

 

It's all about meeting new people tho! lol

 

True, true.... But there are better reasons to meet new people. lol. :p