Valve cover gasket

Dillon · Post by **Dillon** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 1:11 am

My valve cover gasket keeps going bad. ive changed it 3 times and i need to agian. Why is this happening?

Pir0 · Post by **Pir0** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 1:32 am

Are you over tightening them?

I think over revving your engine can sometimes do this too. Maybe im thinking of the head gasket, but i think ive heard of this happening because of that too.

BosnianLanos · Post by **BosnianLanos** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 6:26 am

You should be good for about 50,000 with a valve gasket change. When you take the gasket out, is it hard and brittle, or still fairly soft. If it is soft, then you're either overtightening the bolts, or not using a smear or two of RTV sealant around the edges of the head. If it is hard and brittle, that means that your engine might have a strange heating pattern, and you should flush your coolant system to see if some of the coolant passages in the top of the motor haven't been shut with muck or lime, causing too much heat to reach the gasket.

Worst comes to worst, by 3-4 of 'em on eBay and keep them lying around. It takes 30 minutes to change, and they're only about $20.