I am about to both the front and rear valve cover gaskets on my 2000 GLE. I ordered both valve cover gaskets and a plenum gasket online and mistakenly thought the new valve cover gaskets would also include new spark plug seals. I have tried autozone, car quest, advance auto, napa, and some other local parts stores and none of them sell just the tube seals without the gaskets. I checked with my local dealer and they wanted 8 dollars a piece. Does anybody know of a good place online where i can get these at a reasonable price?

 

I know on the 3.5's they are included on the valve covers themselves

 

That is true for the 3.5's, but the 3.0's still have a traditional rubber seal.

 

Your friendly dealer is charging you almost double the list price. The part number is 13276-31u21 and the list price is $4.72.

Part Number: 1327631u21 List Price Core Price Your Price
Oil filler tube - Seal Seal - From 1/00 2002 - 2003 $4.72 $0.00 $3.54

If you have the time, you can order them from http://www.everythingnissan.com

 

Did you try rockauto.com? Not sure but I think I saw the spark tube seals only.
When you get them and do the work, please take lots of pics, I am thinking on doing it too.

 

Rock auto lists them at $4.03 each. Look in the Ignition category, under Spark Plug Tube Seal

 

Thank you. Decided to order from rock auto.

 

Finally got around to doing it the other day (after like 3 months of putting it off). Unfortunately the UIM was such a pita to remove I did not take pictures. However, a few things I did notice:

1. The front valve cover is cake to replace obviously since there is nothing on top of it.

2. It was easier for me to unbolt the throttle body from the UIM instead of unbolting the IACV from the throttle body and removing the throttle body and UIM as one unit.

3. The four bolts on the firewall side of the UIM are a pain to access. Swivel joints and an angled open ended wrenches were very helpful. Also the two bolts on the back left side of the intake (orientation of you facing the engine) were much easier to remove with an open ended wrench due to the tight clearances between the two bolts and the bracket.

4. Be sure to replace the plenum gasket. Mine crumbled in my hands as I attempted to delicately remove it. Be sure to follow the tightening procedures for the 8 bolts in front. You do not want to go through all of this work again to fix an intake leak (onlyless you enjoy it).

5. If you have not done so already, clean out the EGR tubing leading into the intake. Mine was absolutely disgusting and almost completely blocked with carbon deposits.

All together the whole thing took me 4.5 hours to do both gaskets (as a saturday mechanic.) The front maybe took 30 mins while the rear took the other 4 hours simply due to all of the stuff you have to painstakingly remove and label to get that UIM off, but its definitely within the scope of a slightly experienced mechanic. The 2000-2001 DE-K people have the worst of both worlds with all of these vacuum hoses and other crap to move when it comes to removing the UIM due to the combination of the variable intake and the bowden cable based throttle system.