Uh, melted intake box?

It hasn't overheated since I bought it, the radiator is full, and the overflow looks fine. I've checked everywhere, there's no other signs of heat.

 

The brown line on the box is a crack, right above the melting.

 

By any chance have you used anything to clean the engine bay? Or had it cleaned by someone? Ive seen a type of tire gloss that combined with heat can do crazy shit to plastics.

Just another thought

 

Take it to the DC's on the boat and have them check it out. Have em fab you up a new shiny aluminum one haha!

Could there maybe be exhaust gases coming out through the throttle body and hanging out in the top of the box (because heat rises) and melting it....this could be caused by an intake valve not seating all the way..... don't think that would get hot enough to melt it tho. So forget everything you just read.


Buckshot approach!

 

I don't use tire polish because it just sounds silly to me, and I haven't cleaned the bay or had anyone do it. I took it to the dealership at 5k miles to have my oil changed, but that's it.

 

I actually work with the DC's, haha

 

Maybe the dealer used something on it. Maybe sprayed some Purple Power and didn't rinse?

 

That might be it, but with hurricane Isaac being such an asshole I won't be able to take it to the dealer for a while.

 

Hot air intake? Your doing it wrong...

 

2011

 

I'm looking very closely at this picture:


What I see in it is that the melting damage is strictly to the lid of the box, not at all to the lower part of the box. There is a very clean line between the bottom and the top.

I very strongly doubt that this happened on the truck. I think the lid was removed and burned deliberately, or someone stole your good lid and replaced with a burned one. I believe that if it got hot enough under the hood to do that, there would be obvious damage to the paint on the hood itself.

Do you ever leave the vehicle unlocked when you park it? (Weird stuff happens in key west, I know, I have a place down there.)
When was the last time you looked under the hood? Before or after you had the dealer change the oil?

 

That may not be from heat, that looks more like chemical contact/inter-action, were you recently using some sort of Cleaner, solvent?

the photo shows the body of the enclosure with no deformation, if it was heat the proximity of the whole box would have shown the result of radiant heat soak, this is why I'm leaning towards chemical

 

If it was chemical, would that chemical not have also affected the bottom of the box? This is why I think that it happened off the truck.

Another thing is that the dust suggests that it didn't happen recently.

 

Do you have a shop perform your maintence? If so they may have went to check your filter and removed the lid and placed it someware near your engine. or any hot surface

 

Exactly what I was thinking back on the first page. It looks to me like this damage happened when the lid was off and sitting off to the side near something very hot. Otherwise there would be heat damage to things surrounding it, including the lower part of the box. Someone did this and didn't fess up to it.

 

Not really, on initial contact its possible a covalent scenario took place and neutralized that reaction, whats more alarming is the corner is missing, almost like someone else had a fire or instance and pop'd the hood and swapped it for the good one.

 

Looks like the dealership removed the lid to check the filter, set it precariously on top of the engine, and then accidentally bumped it and it dropped behind/beside the engine and wedged on/next to the exhaust system. Notice that only the side/corner of the lid is melted?

Did you notice any plastic smell immedietely after having your oil changed? Look for a black sticky mark on your exhaust.

 

Or... guy who did oil change before put his 400W light on the box and it made it melt.

 

I haven't cleaned my engine since I bought it, and the only maintenance that's been done since I've had the truck was the first oil change at 5k miles. I bought the truck basically new, it was a dealer demo vehicle. And like I said, there's no other heat damage anywhere.