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Originally Posted by mrmikkelsen  I just did this, thanks for the preview walk through. That oil line grommet thing was rock hard and shattered when I took it out. Due to your heads up about it being hard as plastic, I stuffed rags all around it before pulling it off so all the brittle little bits were captured. My cabin air filters were downright nasty. See yours tucked back inside behind that ducting you removed at the rear. I ordered them Saturday and Amazon had there here Monday slipping them in just in time before I have to drive back to work tomorrow. I love it when a plan comes together! 12 years later and finally you know your pictures did some good. Thanks |
I took a lighter to a blade (to heat it up) and sliced down the side of it. I was tugging on it before that for around 15 minutes trying to get it off and it wouldn't come off. It was so hard that I opted not to use pliers or anything because I thought I would be taking it off in pieces like others have stated. It's so close to the timing chain for there to be a rubber pinata moment. No way I'm fishing that **** out of the timing chain/cover.
I also dabbed some ultra black rtv on areas of the valve cover gasket so that it wouldn't fall off when flipping it over (bought the elring gasket). Also on the front portion of the cylinder (where those seam things are) and half moons so it slid into place and didn't snag. Hand tightened everything and I then torqued everything to 7.5ft lbs working from the middle to top/bot middle on outward slowly and snapped off 2 bolts. I didn't even know I snapped the middle bolt. That's how weak these 24 year old bolts were.
I'm mad that I broke any bolt, but I was particularly mad that I broke it @ the bottom right since it's a pain to get a drill in that area. To makes things worse, it didn't break perfectly horizontal. It had a slight angle to it. I marred some of the area to and cleaned it up a bit. I can't imagine breaking any of the bolts on the far left where it would be a nightmare to get a drill in there.
I had to extract the bolts using left handed bits and got it all installed again w/ new rtv. I didn't torque anything down. Just stopped when I felt the resistance got too much. Those bolts are around $12-15 a piece. Those bolts are pretty heavy for how they look/feel, but the bit cut through them like they were made of pewter. Working fine so far with no leaks.