Well I'm changing the valve cover gaskets and seals. At the moment I'm stumped at installing the new seals for each cylinder. Which way does the grooved part face up or down. I could have sworn the front cover had them facing down and the rear cover had them facing up. Checked chiltons, and the fsm, no detailed picture. Anyone know? I'm done cleaning the intake manifold,egr valve,valve covers,etc..just have to reinstall everything back tommorow.

 

Did you buy factory seals?

If yes - when I did my rear covers (and I don't see why this wouldn't be true for the front cover also), the flat side of the seal was "visible" once the seal was pushed into the valve cover. So once the valve cover is placed back on the heads, the grooved side is what is visible from the top of the engine bay... thats the only way it makes sense.. if you push them in upside down, you'll have a heck of a time getting the spark plug tubes to go through the seal holes... hope that makes sense.

 

Remember, it's inch pounds when tightening, not foot pounds

Me =

 

 

I just put these in my car and when I placed the new ones in I put them in alittle too far...I took the BUtt end of a small screw driver and put in, and pyed them out altitle bit, (there really is no other way to do it) well I think i put alittle rip in the face of the seal..MAN I hope they dont leak, Ill have to take the manifold back off...

-matt

 

I did EXACTLY the same thing. Lucky for me I ordered 6 (3 for the rear and 3 for the front), so I ended up throwing one away. The valve cover groove for the seals is very misleading. I thought at first I had to make the seals flush with the inner-most lip - but when you do that, the seal barely makes it over the top of the spark plug tubes. Then I looked back at some pics I had taken of the valve cover after I took it off (before removingt he old seals) and sure enough, the seals were seated flush with the inside surface of the cover, not all the way in the groove... don't know if what I wrote makes sense, but its hard to explain...

 

Thanks for the input... I found a haynes manual picture though not a close up showed the flat part down and grooved part up. I installed them with a rubber mallet just tapping the outer edges to make it sit flush. Back together now..letting it run used some seafoam..smoking a lot..sinice I sprayed the inside of the intake manifold as well.Changing the oil tommorow and re-doing a compression test see #s.
Going to take the car out tonight and beat on it dropped the rest of seafoam in gas tank.