Hopefully you already know what I've done, having done it yourself at least once.

It's just too easy. You put in the bolts and follow torque and tightening order directions from the FSM to the letter. And before you get to the correct torque -- you sense you have stripped the threads on the hole. Or worse -- you break off the tip of the bolt in the valve cover. Over time, I've done both and now really wish that I hadn't.

I've done this to three on my front cover and I'm a little nervous now about getting the correct amount of torque on the newly replaced gasket. The one that was broken has since been drilled out. I can put another bolt through it if I can get behind/under it (it's tight).

Any advice? I've got a new gasket, and I've put a little extra RTV around the one I had to drill out, but I'm wondering just how tight these need to be to keep from leaking.

 

Those bolts don't require much torque. By chance, did you confuse ft-lb with in-lb?

 

ive never used torque spec on valvecover bolts, just a quarter inch ratchet and put them snug within reason.

 

When screwing in the bolts try using your hands first to screw it in at the beginning. Gently go in reverse until the threads "catch." Then screw the bolts in forward a few turns with the hand, then finally tighten up with the ratchet to torque specs.

 

Use a simple nut driver it works perfectly.

 

As I recall the bolts have a shoulder area that will make contact with the head as you tighten the bolt down on rubber VC grommet. So once you hit bottom with that shoulder area making contact on the head, any additional tightening will just increase the risk of breaking off the bolt tip into the head.

 

 

did this on my 5th gen. didn't take much. That last little bit of tightening that "feels" like is needed? do not do it.

 

Hmmm... yes. Possible. I had a really hard time reading the engraving on my torque wrench, so I may have glossed over that possibility. I will take that to heart.

Everyone else is saying "snug" so it's very likely I was using too much torque. Doh.

So now... if you refer to the "tightening order" in the FSM, I'm in this particular state:

1 is stripped
2 is now drilled out (broke off in the past)
3 is good
4 is stripped

all the rest are fine.

Since 1, 2, and 4 are all in the middle of the front valve cover, with 2 and 4 on the top edge, the only one I'm really concerned about is 1 on the bottom edge, and whether the rest of the bolts will put enough pressure on the gasket to keep it from leaking.

I'm considering leaving everything as is to see if there will be a leak. It seems possible that I can retap 1 and 3 and use a larger threaded bolt. Repairing 2 will require a thru-bolt, which I'm not excited about doing if I can help it.

7 out of 10 bolts is OK right?

 

just use new gasket..plus alot of silicone gasket paste and keep an eye on it

 

heh heh did that. i got it all put together and turns out that's not good enough!

found synthetic sprayed onto my intake manifold above one of the stripped bolts. so... 7/10 is no good.

so since i'm racing tomorrow, i found a helicoil kit from napa and fixed the two stripped holes.

i added more oil and topped off the antifreeze and will see what happens in a few minutes... -pc

 

If it didn't take much...Then I'm sure you're using a 3/8" drive or 1/2" drive ratchet! 70 in lbs is light torque and if you fear it's gonna back out (like most 4 cylinders) apply some light duty (blue) loctite to the threads and call it the day....If you break one of these bolts I know for sure you are clueless with technique....the shoulder hits the block and maybe 1/8-1/3 more of a turn!

 

UPDATE: Installed two helicoils to fix the two stripped bolts and retightened. Autocrossed the next day and found that it was still leaking/spraying oil lightly on the manifold (and elsewhere around the area). It wasn't enough to pack up and go home, but I inspected the leak the next day and believe I have found the problem:

My valve cover gasket was bound up which put about 1/8" between the cover and the head. I'm probably lucky I didn't break the cover. I'm going to put it back on today and we'll see where that leads...

 

it'll cut the gasket before it would even warp the V/C...

 

ANOTHER UPDATE: So I went to reinstall the old gasket and realized that it HAD been pinched/cut from the previous bad install. So no luck that night.

Next day I went and bought another (entire) Felpro kit and I installed it this morning.

I just sent my wife out for a drive in it and she came back with no leaks!

The trick to getting it installed without kinks was using four rubber bands that held the gasket in place. Once the cover was positioned and I could see that there were no kinks i cut and removed the rubber bands. Everything bolted back down (8/10 this time) with a finger smudge-worth of rtv around the head before pitting the cover and gasket down. Everything is down tight and torqued BELOW SPEC so I don't lose yet another bolt? :-/

Autocross event tomorrow. Wish me luck!

 

You could use either gasket glue to hold it in the valve cover or a little bit of rtv in the groove here and there....

 

Remember 1 foot pound equals 12 inch pounds.

 

I tried that the first time around and didn't find it so effective.

Probably the most effective technique that I used aside from the rubber bands, was a telescoping mirror to inspect the gasket all the way around before, during, and after tightening it down. That way I could be sure it was installed correctly.

Over an hour on the highway and 12 autocross laps later, there are still no leaks!