The upper intake gasket has been leaking a little between the upper and lower intake. It shows up as a little oil seaping out. I pulled the upper intake tonight and got a surprise. Is inside suppose to have much black carbon in it? The inside is covered with a thin (1/8 inch) layer of "black crap", whats going on? The intake from the turbo end in is as clean as new. Also, is the gasket going to need sealer and to what torque? Thanks for the help.

That crap is what you get when you have an EGR and a good enough reason to disable it.

This is my first time in a diesel. I have worked on many 350 TBI engines and have never seen anything like this. I have seen what EGR's can do on a gas, but I have never seen this much stuff all the way down the runners of the intake. It seems a little much. It doesn't make any sense to have an air filtter when you have this much crap in the intake. Does the intake come off of these trucks easily? Do injector lines have to come off? What do I do to get the egr shut off without upsetting the CPU. Thanks

The EGR draws exhaust into the intake through the center of each head into the lower intake plenum (the spider's bowl) when the EGR valve, on top of the upper plenum, is activated by vacuum through the EGR solenoid. Since the soot build-up is bad, remove the lower intake and clean it but buy "F" engine gaskets. Tell them it's a 3500 diesel from 9? and it will come up with the right one. This will block the exhaust. You can put a sheet metal shim under the EGR to make sure it doesn't do anything.

Back when my turbo worked, I popped out a couple of those gaskets that separate the upper and lower intake. The sealing area is a bit insufficient and the bolt spread wide. Each blew out the back. Last time, I coated both sides of the gasket with spray copper....just enough stick to keep it from blowing out, but not so much that you can't separate the halves.


Thanks,


Jim

Removing the lower intake is easy and it does not require removing the injector lines. I would try to swap for an "F" model upper and lower intake. They are frequently for sale on e-bay. Pulling the vacuum line (and plugging it) from the EGR will stop the build up of the "Goo", but you'll still be heating the intake with exhaust. You might want to relocate your PMD to a cooler location at this time as having the intake out of the way is almost a requirement for removeing the PMD. If you move the coolant line from the water crossover do not try to remove the screwed in fitting as it is magnesium and will snap off and you will have to buy a new coolant crossover manifold and fitting.

Thanks for the great info. I will get the intake gaskets as talked about. I am hoping that the intake is an easy pull. I did the A1 relocating of the PMD and boost control. I am not useing the boost control right now. My upper intake was sweeting alot of oil out and it looked like it should be fixed. I have been down on power and been experienceing a low acceleration miss. On light acceleratioin the motor will start to mss a little and blow some smoke. Once I give it about 1/2 the pedel it clears up and runs super! It has NEVER quit. From what I can tell its all orig equipment. No tags on the IP. I am hoping this will help out along with the new filters, air and fuel.

I don't detatch the heater hose. I unbolt it from the intake and push it toward the turbo and I can work around it. Trust me, it's a pita to take it out and have to put fluid and maybe get a leak afterwards.

As far as your boost control goes if you havent used it yet see if you can send it back, you can make your own for about $10 or less, have you used the fuel controller yet. Several of us have seen it before and we have never gotten a good read on how it works, from anybody that owns one, other than the vendor's sales info. do you have access to a T2 or a MT2500 snap on scanner, it would be interesting to see how much change "on the fly" can be made by "dialing in" a different resistance value to the FSD.

Speaking of scanners, there is an open source project out there to
monitor ALDL ( GM 90's PCM data format ) data using Palm/Notebook.
Anybody has any information whether diesel PCMs adhere to the same
specs as gasoline?

Your smoke and hesitating sounds to me like your EGR might not be shuting all the way or at all. Or that you're not getting enough boost check the vacuum, the actuator and the solenoid.