Hey guys, I have a friend with a 2004 4.6 and it's leaking coolant under the intake. I know there is a crossover tube under there, and I'm confident that either that or an intake gasket is leaking, but everything I see about leaks under the intake are the previous body style trucks or plastic intake trucks. This one has a metal intake and I haven't seen any posts about that leaking. Am I just missing something or is it possible this isn't the issue?

 

Ok, I have the intake off and there is a hole in the bypass tube at the base of the nipple where the rear line to the back of the throttle body goes. I am ready to replace the tube but I cannot get it loose from the rear of the passenger side head. It's right against the firewall and there's no room to get the bolts out that hold the pipe in place. Am I going to have to pull a motor mount and move the engine forward to get this out? Is that what others that have had to do this have done or have you just cut off the bracket?

Here is where the hole is:



Here is the top bolt I can't get out (it's on the back of the head):



Here is the other one:



Any ideas?

 

Even though there were no responses I thought I'd post a solution. In the end I was unable to remove the tube without pulling the engine or head so I pushed a pick tool into the hole to open it up as far as it would go to get to good metal. I then sanded the area to bare metal to make sure it wasn't rusted with a bunch of pinholes. It was not, so after roughing it up and cleaning it with acetone I mixed up some JB Qwik and pushed a good amount into the hole to form sort-of a plug. I then covered the plug with JB, smoothed it out, put a small piece of fabric over it (to give the patch some structure) and coated that with more JB. It's been good for a few hundred miles and with a working temperature of 500 degrees I don't expect it to be a problem. I was a little concerned about the pressure in the coolant system, but I did the math and at 15psi the pressure exerted on the 1MM squared hole is less than .02 pounds. I'm comfortable with that.