That was one hell of a painful job. My left arm and hand look like I got in a fight with a bobcat. I don't have any pictures because I was really not in the mood during this entire process.

The drivers side was weirdly easier than the passenger.

Both valve covers have a pile of stuff over the top of them. One of the main issues is the engine lifting brackets. They are not just for lifting, they also hold some stuff. The drivers side doubles as a brace for the coil pack base and the passenger side has a hole for one of the oxygen sensor connectors to clip into so that it doesn't melt on the exhaust. The rear bracket is also kind of important for... taking off the rear bracket.

Most nuts and bolts in this process are 13mm. The valve cover bolts are 10mm.

One of the big things to keep in mind here is that this is a style of valve cover that has rubber grommets/donuts and a rubber gasket. The thing keeping it sealed is the tension of the rubber, not the bolts. The bolts have the captive T-washers that limit travel and tightening them more won't make the gasket tighter. The torque spec on them is only 11 Nm and there is no reason whatsoever to overtighten. Unless you really like pain and want to strip and re-thread the holes in the head.

I used Fel-Pro gaskets and grommets. The Fel-Pro gasket has a slightly different profile form the OE one which I think is meant to keep tighter longer. Also, Fel-pro grommets are blue, which I think is kinda cool.

Things you need to remove to get to the drivers side cover:

EGR valve
Top hose for the EGR valve base (you could remove the bottom hose, but I decided to not fight that bolt)
Oil dipstick tube to EGR valve base bolt
One nut holding the wiring harness behind the EGR base
Two nuts holding the EGR base to the block (you can't really see them, have to feel them)
The bolt holding the lift bracket to the coil pack base plate

With all this out you can pull the EGR base off the studs and remove the lift bracket completely.

Remove coil packs (two 5mm bolts each). You don't have to unplug them, you can just move them out of the way.
You also don't have to remove the base connector, it can be tucked up out of the way.

Remove the two nuts and the coil baseplate.

And you can unbolt the valve cover.

Things you need to remove to get to the passenger side cover:

Alternator
Purge tube to the intake
Purge valve
Other purge valve behind it
Oil filler neck
The brace that bolts to the back of the alternator (and holds one of the vacuum valves). That's two 10mm bolts.
Unplug the third vacuum thing bolted to the intake. You don't have to take it off, just remove the vacuum tube and the connector so that you don't break them.
Unclip the wiring harness along the top of the valve cover and tuck it aside
Remove the third 10mm bolt on that same bracket that held the alternator brace. That only holds the bracket for the far purge valve.

Now comes the really fun part.

The passenger rear lifting bracket absolutely must be removed to get the valve cover off. It covers one of the bolts.
The bracket is held on with a bolt on the outboard side and a stud on the inboard side. There is also an oxygen sensor connector clipped into the bracket. The stud is also what holds the transmission dipstick tube. You have to remove the nut holding the tube and take the tube bracket off the stud, and then you can unscrew the stud.

There is very little room to work and you can't see a damn thing. You can see the outboard bolt from underneath, but there is no way to apply enough leverage to loosen it from there.
The best tool to have is a ratcheting box end wrench. 13mm. You can do this with a regular wrench, but the ratcheting one makes it way easier. You can just move the lever to let it click instead of repositioning.

You also need some sort of a lever. I used the Harbor Freight tire iron. It has a spoon end that is really handy.

What you need to do:

• Insert lever into the bracket hole all the way until it hits the firewall. This should keep the wrench from flopping to the 6 o'clock position.
• Lie on top of the engine.
• Put the wrench on the bolt pointing to 12 or 1 o'clock
• Carefully swing it till it hits your lever
• Use the lever against the bracket to push the wrench to loosen the bolt

Repeat this with the nut holding the transmission dipstick. The angle will be different, you will have to pry up more than sideways. Mind the heater hoses.

With the bolt and nut loose you should be able to unscrew them by hand and remove them.
Then, you can take off the dipstick tube bracket and repeat the process the third time with the stud. It will feel like a nut, but it's really one piece with the stud. You will need to finagle the wrench to be under the now-loose dipstick tube.

You don't actually have to take out the stud completely. You can unscrew it halfway and it will let the bracket move enough for you to access the valve cover bolt, which is where we were going all along.

Clean the gasket surface on the head and clean the valve covers. This is important for the gasket to seat properly. Also, make sure to clean in/around the holes where the grommets go. Once again, don't go all gorilla on tightening the valve cover bolts. I actually used a proper torque wrench.

And then you put it all back together in reverse. The only caveat is that when you mount the brace for the back of the alternator leave the two bolts loose until you install the alternator and tighten that back bolt. And then tighten the two 10mm.

You might be tempted to remove the bracket on the passenger side completely, but, quite honestly, unscrewing that stud all the way and prying out the connector is more trouble than it's worth. And you have to remount the dipstick tube, and tightening that is easier with the bracket there for leverage.

 

I always appreciate your clear and complete description of the problem with the solution.


192.168.100.1 192.168.1.1

 

Thanks, I try.