I'm about to go nuts trying to get the intake manifold off of my 99 Sunfire 2.2 liter. I've removed the throttle body and pulled all the bolts/nuts from the manifold, but it's not coming off the studs. I can pull it about 1/2" from the head, but it's not coming off. I'm probably missing something stupid simple. Any suggestions?
Did you take off bracket that goes from back of power steering pump bracket to manifold
FuzzMASTA9
I loosened the pump enough to roll it backward, but I didn't take the bracket off if I recall. I'll look at that.
That was the problem! I pulled the bracket off and was able to get the head off today. Now it's off to the machine shop to have them look at it to see if it's usable or not. Might be looking at a new head. Amazing how light it was without the intake and exhaust manifolds!
Thanks again for the enlightenment!
Glad I could help, on my old 98 that was 1 of 3 brackets that never got put back on the car when I did head gasket
FuzzMASTA9
What were the other two? It seemed like for every piece I took off this car, I had to remove three others just to get to it. I've never worked on such a difficult vehicle to work on as this. It doesn't help that I have hands the size of grapefruits! LOL
I've got mitts like a bear too, but these J-Bodies are pretty easy to work on, relative to many other vehicles....especially the newer ones.
The worst thing about these engines are their oil filter location IMO, they used to drive me nuts back when i was changing oil and tires.
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1995 Corsica and a bunch of trucks too...
When replaced my clutch it from factory had brackets running across front of block from one side to tranny to support everything together and on all my cavys them braces went right into scrap pile and never had problems with not having them on car.
FuzzMASTA9
I would have to imagine if you had a lift, these might be easy to work on, but hunched over on a driveway by yourself, I've cursed more working on this thing than I ever have most other cars I've worked on. The one thing that has been nice about working on this car though is that nothing was rusted on. I was really nervous about pulling the exhaust manifold off because typically the studs bust off because of the rust. Most of the stuff has come off with relatively little effort (except the head bolts - those took both hands!)
Once you get use to them there easy to work on, expecially the 2200 engine. I personally have done 15-20 head gaskets on them and same with engine replacements, had to pull tranny out of my old 98 2200 cavy with manual in it 8 times in 1 month bc kept having problems with the aftermarket slave cylinders blowing out on me when was trying to bleed air out of them. Hope no one else ever has that problem like I did.
FuzzMASTA9
