scooterforever
Member Since: 03 Oct 2019
Location: Massachusetts
Posts: 3
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| Valve cover gasket replacement -- tricks and recommendations |
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I just replaced the valve cover gaskets on the 4.4 V8, and while the job had its share of annoyances, it wasn't too bad save for the fact that on the left hand (US driver's side) cover I over torqued one corner and split the gasket so had to redo the job.
General observations:
1. The passenger side (US) is easier than the driver's (US) side;
2. If you are replacing the valve covers, it's a great time to replace the spark plugs and to check on the secondary tensioners and (thanks to the post below for the recommendation) valve clearances;
3. I have tried two different sets of aftermarket gaskets and both were struggles, if I have to use it again I will try OEM gaskets;
4. You will need to remove the heat shields on both sides, there just isn't enough room to do the work with them in place;
5. Have a telescoping magnet on hand, I dropped tools and bolts into the engine bay;
6. Removal of the valve covers is much easier if you do not have to wrestle with holding wiring harness and, the heater hoses (RH), throttle body lines, and AC lines (LH). Use zip times to hold these harnesses, hoses and liens out of the way. For the AC lines, use a ratchet strap anchored on the wheel spokes to pull them clear of the valve cover;
7. I had trouble getting the gaskets to fit and stay in place before mounting. Using RTV and clamping (lightly) the gasket in place for an hour helped a lot;
8. Careful with the free (separate from the rubber bushing) bolts that are located one per side, on the most rear, top position. One of them snapped on me (with under 9 foot lbs of torque on it...) and I had to redo the cover and work out the bolt half with a chisel; and
9. After replacing the valve covers, monitor your short term fuel trips on your first drive. If you start seeing +15-20% short term trims in both banks, you probably have a seating failure in one of the gaskets and have a vacuum leak. Doing one gasket at a time is recommend because you will not have to guess as to which gasket failed to seat.
Lessons from the right side valve cover:
On the LR3, the right side valve cover was not too bad. You need to remove the air chamber by the MAF and the PCV valve (easy). You need to remove the VVT solenoid connector (easy) and two bolts for the engine cover bracket (easy, 8mm nuts). You need to remove the heat shield (easy, but you will need a pry tool to lift it from the 2 spring clips).
After removing the above components, unclip the ignition coils and remove the 8mm bolts holding them in place and remove the coils. Then, remove the 14 10mm bolts from around the valve cover, these are in a 6-2-6 configuration. You will need to make sure that each bolt is fully free of the threads. They have rubber feet around the bolt so you should not have a problem with bolts dropping out. You will need 1/4" socket wrenches with a variety of 10mm sockets that vary in length. You may need 1/4" extensions as well.
After the 14 10mm bolts are all loose, go around the valve cover carefully looking for wire tie-down points. There are several. If you miss one, the cover will snag and it will not come out. Find them and pry them out of their attachment holes.
Remove the valve cover. It is easier if you have unclipped the heater hoses so you can move these around. The valve cover removal is a tight fit, but there is enough room.
Once off, clean up the valve cover and the engine mounting surface. If you are changing spark plugs, change them now.
Fit the new gasket to the valve cover. Mine were not perfect fits, I had to carefully work the gasket into place and some spots seemed as if there was almost too much gasket length. If you work at kneading the gasket into place, it should fit. The manual directs putting two short beads of RTV on two spots on the cover. These spots correspond to the location of the cam sprockets, and I suspect they are to provide some additional protection against oil leakage from the cams throwing off oil when in operation.
Remember, the mating surface on the engine will have a small mount of old RTV - take this off.
Fit the valve cover into place being careful not to disturb the gasket or the RTV beads. Bolt the valve cover into place, the workshop manual says 9 ft lbs of torque. There is a sequence to follow that you can pull from the manual. Reattach everything you removed, and give the RTV time to cure.
Lessons from the left side valve cover:
This was the harder of the two sides for three reasons:
1. there are more wire tie-down points, including one at the vary back;
2. the AC lines make access to one bolt very difficult (but not impossible); and
3. the dipstick is secured via a bracket to one of the bottom (read 'harder to reach') bolts.
To give yourself more room, undo the bolt holding the AC lines in place near the valve cover.
In general, the steps to the LH valve cover removal are the same as the RH valve cover removal, however, the following additional steps are required:
1. remove the oil filler tube by lifting up on the small bottom tab and spinning counter clockwise;
2. remove the ABS pump and bracket for additional room -- may not be required but I wanted to get the rust off my pump bracket anyway and only took a few minutes to remove; and
3. the factory manual says to remove the oil dipstick in order to access one of the cover bolts masked by the dipstick bracket. I have never had an easy time removing a dipstick tube from any car with age and mileage. Instead, I found it MUCH easier to simply cut one side of the bracket with a hack saw blade and then fold this cut part of the bracket up so that I could just rotate the dipstick and get access to the bolt underneath. When the job was done, I just rotated the dip stick back in place and folded the metal part of the bracket back into place.
Hope this is useful to someone!
- Scooter
Last edited by scooterforever on 9th Apr 2020 4:42 pm. Edited 3 times in total
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 1st Apr 2020 5:35 am |
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MintyHit
Member Since: 25 Jul 2017
Location: Bradford on Avon
Posts: 227
  
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Really useful! Thank you.
I am just about to undertake checking my valve clearances after 160k and some lpg usage - this will be really helpful to me.
Did you check yours whilst you had the covers off out of interest?
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| 1st Apr 2020 9:49 am |
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scooterforever
Member Since: 03 Oct 2019
Location: Massachusetts
Posts: 3
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It did not occur to me but it would be the perfect time to check valve clearances. I did check both secondary tensioners, my original thinking being that they might have needed replacement (they did not, instead it was my fan pulley that had worn out creating an engine noise).
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| 1st Apr 2020 2:35 pm |
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