Also, be careful with the goofy plastic oil supply pipe on the inside of the valve cover - they will break.
RAS
Hey Ras,
I am in the process of finishing this project. The dealer left one rubber washer out of the bag so now I am one short. Argh!!!
But anyways, what pattern did you use to tighten the valve cover gasket back on? Did you use this following pattern:
Also, I know you mentioned you tightened things down just shy of 7.3 lbs-ft (10 nm). What about the 3 bolts that are towards the front of the engine (near the fan) and then the two bolts on top of the valve cover (the ones by the spark plugs)? Is there any tightening pattern for those bolts? Did you use the same hand torque specs for them?
Again, thanks again for a great DIY. I also replaced the oil galley gasket as well as the valve cover breather hose (since my just literally just broke apart as I was trying to loosen it from the valve cover).
Well, one of the holes is stripped, no thanks to a faulty torque wrench. I tried to tap the hole to put a heli coil in with the valve cover on, but there is no way that is going to happen with a 1/4" drill bit and not mar the valve cover as well.
I was wondering, can we just re-thread the hole if it is stripped or is a helicoil mandatory at this point? I mean the bolt still catches fine when I hand tighten it into place, but if I try to tighten it, it will spin. I'm trying to avoid opening the hole further and messing up the seating for the collar on the collar bolt.
Same here. I have one stripped hole at the top inside corner near the half-moon. I used another bolt with the same length with the original factory one but it's threaded all the way to the hex head (there is no stop washer at the thread end). The bolt is tightened but I didn't torq to specs because I'm afraid it will spin again forever. Is it ok to leave like that or do I have to re-thread the hole? I dove the car around for 1/2 hour and there is no leak on that bolt. What's your best solution to this?
So I got the valve cover off the car, except it is still attached by the rubber hose. Is there a proper way to remove the rubber from the valve cover? I don't want to break anything.
Just finished this - the precipitating cause was the coolant fitting at the back of the head was leaking, as per normal. (After replacing everything that leaked at the front of the engine bay.) And the only way for mere mortals to get to the fitting is apparently to take the cam cover off. Which is just as well, as the gaskets for the spark plug towers were past their due date, and three of the towers had a lot of oil in them. It's a wonder the thing still ran. So all that, and new plugs and cabin filters too. Shop had quoted me $350 in labor to replace just the coolant fitting. Another happy forum user!
Nice tip removing the battery compartment cover. I was able to get a large handheld mirror to view the back of the motor to be sure the gaskets are seated. I'll feel for oil once it's cool. I still smell oil but hope it's just oil burning off.
Note: I found the instructions apply just as well to the M42 with the exception of Oil Supply Seal: 11121247948. I couldn't find it in my M42 motor until I realized it's note there. I'm going to edit the first post.
When I did my valve cover, I labeled my boots 1-4 starting from the front of the car. I was also able get get the wire lengths to be perfect. The harness' length can be adjusted by popping the wires out of their clips and adjusting to the proper length.
Also, Cirrus has great coverage on this but I also have a DIY video I created.
i am planning to do the valve cover gasket on my car and i got a question on replacing the oil supply seal, is there a screw to be remove? or is the seal just slides in and out? thank you
I just finished my valve cover gasket replacement last sunday after having to heli coil 12 out of the 15 bolts because the P.O decided to take the car to a mechanic that probably didn't take the time to torque the bolts to specs and ended up striping the threads and that also lead me to another problem having oil in my spark plugs. And after all that work that I put in this weekend and following this DIY forum my car started to run the way that it should be but just Intel today (15 miles later) my check engine light came on could it have been that the spark plug wires got damage from the oil
Here's a tip that made the job go a little smoother: When you place the gasket on the valve cover, tie it in place with dental floss at several places around the perimeter. This keeps the gasket in place when you turn over the valve cover, especially the half moon area. After the cover is placed, the floss is easily cut and pulled out before the bolts are tightened. Leave one bolt hole on the driver's side without floss so that you can place a fastener in there loosely to keep the cover in place while you cut the floss and place the other bolts. Also, it helps to put a wrench on the flywheel bolt and turn (clockwise) until the "squares" at the back of the camshafts are at a point where they'll interfere the least. I found that the half moons tended to get hung up on them, folding them over. I did a few dry runs w/o silicone to get a feel for it. When you get the cover seated, you can reach your hand back there and easily feel whether the half moons are in place.
I saw a neat trick on YouTube regarding installation of the rubber washers on the valve cover bolts - lube the washer, place it on the bolt, then thread an M6x1 nut onto the bolt, which will force the washer over the shoulder. And by the way, when you tighten the bolts into the head, go slow - once that shoulder hits the aluminum head, they're not going any farther; that's the point where they'll strip.