Leaky valve cover gaskets, fix?

[mcgavinz26]

My original 3100 in the Z26 had them. My Malibu has this happening. My 3400 in Beretta did this. This LX9 with only 12k miles has it.

I want to clean and polish/paint the valve covers on the LX9 before its installed, but I don't want to do it if every 2k miles of driving results in dirty oily valve covers. Has anyone else noticed this? It seems to happen the most around the bolts. Does anyone have a fix for it? Silcone in some magic spots?

[RedBird]

they make new grommets for the bolts, they're not very exsensive.... but i dont see a car with 12k needing them. weird.

[IsaacHayes]

Wahhh? My 94 has never leaked!!! hahaha. I even re-used the gaskets twice when replacing intake gaskets. The last time I put new ones on because they came with the metal felpro problem solver and I was using a different (3400) lower intake... Mine are the good metal ones though...

I had a small leak once before I ever touched the engine from one of the bolts. It was finger tight only! I torq'ed it back down and was good from there. I used a torq wrench on all 8 bolts last time. I even used the torq wrench on my spark plugs last time LOL.

BTW if you plan to polish the covers, there are some casts more smooth than others. Mine is smooth smooth smooth, others are as rough as the intake manifold. Just a heads up in case you never saw a smooth one.

[mcgavinz26]

Are there any clearance issues with the valve covers between the 3400 and the 3500 and the rocker arms? I can swap them with no worries right? I'm interested in keeping the same PCV valve that the 3400 uses, not that riveted in thing on the 3500, unless someone can convince me otherwise.

Maybe its not a leak so much as dirt and dust accumulating from driving the car? EIther way, it looks "oily". When I first did my 3400 swap I polished the covers and tried keeping them clean, but it happened so fast it just got annoying after a while. I'm thinking I'll paint them this time and make the fuel rails match. Nothing over the top, but a little dress up would be nice.

[IsaacHayes]

They are same AFAIK.

[PCGUY112887]

Chances are it's dirt... or dirt that has stuck to oil that was spilled at one point in time. Out of all the 3x00 engines I've looked at/played with, I've never seen one with leaking valve cover gaskets. Especially after 12k miles.

What is riveted on your 3500 cover? My 3500 covers work just like my 3100 covers did, I used the same PCV tube and all.

[IsaacHayes]

I have seen the bolt leak but thats cause mine wasn't tight enough after I bought the car. I took a nut driver and was able to tighten it up by hand a bunch! This time I torqed it down with a torq wrench so they are nice and tight and good.

The oil residue from filling/etc does attract dirt. So far my painted cover is clean. I fill oil with a funnel just to make sure I don't spill any now, because I got a little dribble and then it was a pain to clean it off.

PCGUY, take a look at your 3500 valve cover. See the little flat square thing on the left of the PCV grommet? His has a rivet there with a tab that holds the PCV in so you can't replace it. No idea what GM does that for... Your cover just is missing the rivet and bracket. My cover doesn't even have that flat spot for that at all. Looks cleaner.