So I finally made some dramatic progress tonight. It hasn't been easy.. and I will add, that when you put the upper intake back on... probably better to have a second person to help. It's just really cumbersome. At this point I have the alternator, A/C pump, and the belt on and the intake is sitting at thread tight. I had to stop due to time and I had a couple plugs that I couldn't account for... where do they go? lol so I went back to the pictures.
For all the wire harness junkies you can see that I did indeed put new flume/ conduit and tape on. I went with blue because the plug wires ( NGK) were blue.. and the truck is too so it made sense. anyway.. almost there and hoping to be done either the end of this week or sometime next week and try to fire it up. Still have to dump the oil pan and put it back on and torque the intake.
I will add that I replaced one of the "pulleys" because we set it on fire trying to put heat on a bolt Why it was plastic in the first place is beyond me. here are the pics. Thanks for looking









I do have one random question... if anyone is looking at this. is the connection between the throttle and the upper intake just dry or is there a gasket that belongs there? I don't remember taking one out/ off but, it's been a few months lol

 

There are gaskets between everything -- no dry joints.
I believe that some head gasket kits don't come with the upper intake gasket.

 

It wasn't the intake gasket so to speak. it was the throttle body to the intake and for the life of me I couldn't think of that haha. So I looked it up at lucky 8 and sure enough you were right.... so ordered it this afternoon. Everything I have gotten from them, regardless of what they say, has arrived in 3 days... that's pretty fast for free shipping. I always look there first for everything. Hopefully it will be here Friday afternoon when I'm off again.
Thanks again... not sure what I would do had I not found you guys here! this is a great forum!