Valve cover gaskets: questions
 

I have a 99 Eclipse GS with the regular non-turbo 2.0.
My first question is, what's a good brand of gaskets to go with? I'm at 83,000 miles and 3 of the spark plug gasket rings are going bad and one's completely shot, leaking oil into the chamber. For anybody who has changed these out, is there anything specific to be aware of when I get into this? Any tips?There's alarge plastic piece on the left side of the block that is molded slightly over the top of the valve cover. Can anyone tell me what that is and does it need to come off in order to do this right?I looked at that post on here with the engine compartment pics and didn't seethispart labeled. Could someone tell me what it is and howto take it off?

I know somebody told me to get a book on this but I've looked at the books before andthey never seem to behelpful for what I"m doing.I had my speed sensors go out andI couldn't even findanything on themin the book. I found a pic of the location on this forum and managed to change them out from that, easy enough. Maybetheparticular manual I was using wasn't very good.

Anyway, I'll refer back here if I have any morequestions. thanks

RE: Valve cover gaskets: questions
 

verrrrry simple process. first off what plastic piece? if you are talking about the plastic cam gear cover, dont' worry about it, the valve cover will clear it. you have to disconnect the distributor coil first off, take the spark plug wires out,unscrew the distributor coil and remove it. after that it's a series of i think 6 mm bolts to take the valve cover off. after that just take the gaskets off. when you put the new one in there (felpro is fine) get some kind of adhesive to keep the gasket from falling off when you put it on. pretty simpel proces.

RE: Valve cover gaskets: questions
 

Hey, thanks. Went to Auto Zone today and I bought a Haynes manual for it and some Fel-Pro gaskets. The manual clearly describes how to replace them. The plastic piece on the side is the timing belt cover. It looked like it should clear it but I didn't know if it would be tough to put it back without accidentally knocking a gasket out of place. I agree that it doesn't look too complicated but I've learned to never underestimate any vehicle project over the years.

RE: Valve cover gaskets: questions
 

its a very simple project. honestly the longest part of the process was waiting for the adhesive to dry so the gasket would stay in place. only the actual vavle cover gasket would fall, the spark plug cover gaskets will stay no problem.

RE: Valve cover gaskets: questions
 

Well, I put the gaskets in this afternoon. It wasn't complicated but it's not a 30 min. job either. 3 trips to the hardware store to get stuff I needed didn't help much. The old gaskets came off easily but there were some spots on the head of the motor that had to be carefully scraped and removed. The most time consuming part waspreping and degreasing the valve cover and the motor, basically cleaning the surfaces.

If anyone finds this and needs some pointers on how this goes, here's a few tips from my experience. When you buy the gaskets, be sure to get some RTV heat resistant gasket maker so you can tack a few spots in the valve cover to hold the large gasket in place when you go to put it on. I tacked the corners, in front of the bolts, a spot on each side, and four spots for each ring. I was able to place it back on the motor rightaway without any problem.
When you go to remove it, I found it easier to first remove the battery, then remove the airfilter hose out of the way.It's probably not necessary but it was nice not having it in the way. You've got a bolt on the side of the valve cover holding a wiring harness that has to come out and another one that's snapped down on a couple of bolts on the left.
I should have mentioned it earlier but the valve cover bolts take a 8 mm socket. I had one but then I saw that the ones in the back would be pretty hard to get to so I went and bought a 6", 1/4" drive extension. It came in handy for the whole project. I came back, ready to get to work and then realized 3 of the bolts (the threaded parts)stuck up about half an inch past the head. The regular socket wouldn't go down far enough so I ended up going back to buy a set of longer metric sockets. Once I had those, I was in business. The distributor has 10 mm bolts and that came off next. Then I removed all the valve cover bolts. The cover came off easily. It didn't require any tapping.

The Haynes manual helped in showing what order to tighten the bolts back down in. The back middle is 1, bottom middle 2, left center 3, right center 4, bottom left corner 5, top left corner 6, right top corner 7 and bottom right corner 8. I snugged them all down in that order lightly and then came back through and did it a couple times until they were tight. Main things to avoid doing damage too when doing this project is, take it real easy tightening these down so you don't crack the valve cover. I was very gradual with them and most of them did end up tightening to a stop. I didn't force them any more. Also, when you go to clean the old gasket material off the block, you have to be extremely careful scraping the stuff off so you don't gouge the aluminium, which would cause a leak.

Anyway, I took it for a test drive and no leaks so far around the large gasket or in the spark plug ports. Looks good. Hopefully this will help somebody some day.

RE: Valve cover gaskets: questions
 

I changed mine today b/c it found it leaking in the back corner by the throttle body.
Fel-Pro gasket. It was blue, made me laugh.
Easy as pie to do. Pulled the cover off, cleaned excess, inspected head for sludge (clean as a church going virgin), cleaned the valve cover, installed back on.... 45mins.

RE: Valve cover gaskets: questions
 

lol this thread is almost a year old

RE: Valve cover gaskets: questions
 

what are you talking about? this threat is 3 days old!

RE: Valve cover gaskets: questions
 

haha, yea what are you smoking ;)

RE: Valve cover gaskets: questions
 

By the way, whats the torque specs on the valve cover bolts? I think thats why i have that oil leak. Its really pissing me off. The only reason why i didnt tighten em down to much was because i broke my last valve cover and dont want to go through that again. i rather have it leak very little, than brake the damn thing...