My local shop thinks it will take about two hours to replace the intake manifold gasket and put in new seals on all four fuel injectors.

I was thinking more like one hour for a shop. What do you think?

Do you agree with my local indy shop ?

I have bought all the parts from FCP Grotton, I am not sure whether I want to tackle that one myself...

I was also thinking of sending the fuel injectors for a good cleaning while they are out.

Any other suggestions ?

Thanks.
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'89 244DL M47 166K miles

If you have the time, you should do this yourself. At least the manifold gasket replacement. You will clean everything, and know exactly how the job was done.

Should you find the typical cracked and leaking manifold gasket, you might decide the car runs so much better you won't bother with the expense of cleaning injectors.

However, if time is an issue, the two hour shop quote should be ample, assuming the shop does exactly as you request and no more. I'm sure they expected to make some profit on parts, and may not like using yours.
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Art Benstein near Baltimore

Thanks Art.

I think I will tackle the intake manifold gasket myself. But do I need a special tool to smooth out the surface once I have removed the old gasket? Or is a rag enough? I assume that the two mating parts where the gasket goes have to be squeaky clean. No sealant needed, just goes dry, right ?
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'89 244DL M47 166K miles

I think you'll do fine with a few paper towels and maybe a bit of solvent - good use for wd-40 (not many others I find), brake cleaner or what have you. I've never seen one stuck much to either head or block, taking more than an ice cream stick to remove. Hope you don't have one someone glued on.

Take extra care not to drop the nuts. More comfort doing it leaning over the passenger fender. Don't forget the motor lift bracket instead of a washer on the rearmost stud. Take the bolt from the support and just spread the manifold from the head far enough to remove and insert gasket, unless you aim to clean up throttle body, idle air motor and so forth while you're at it.
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Art Benstein near Baltimore

Two hours seems maybe a little much but certainly in the right ballpark. It's not unreasonable.

You should definitely do this yourself. It's not that difficult and there's not much to go wrong. A pressure flush would be a good idea.

Pressure flush? Is that an injector cleaning? Same thing... or?

Thanks.

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'89 244DL M47 166K miles

Yeah that's the same thing. Some people report a noticeable improvement after a pressure flush, but they're probably also swapping out seals and gaskets so it's hard to know how much of the difference to attribute to the flush, or how necessary it really is. My feeling is if you've got fifteen years on the same injectors and they're off the vehicle, you might as well do it. But like Art said, if you're having rough idle (and you know it's not a dirty throttle body) and you're on you're original manifold gasket, chances are the new gasket will smooth it right out and you won't need to do the injectors. Since you don't need to take the injectors or the fuel rail off to get the manifold away enough to swap the gasket, it would be easy enough to do first. You'd easily do the job in an hour. I think it's the injector seals that are probably more labor intensive than the intake gasket.