Valve cover spark plug tube oil ring leak

[Paul]

Searched but not found. I found oil in my spark plug tube (the cylinder closest to firewall on passenger side, not sure of #), so it is leaking past the o-ring or grommet at that location. Considering what a PITA it is to remove the valve cover, how likely is it for the o-ring to be trashed versus improperly seated?

I don't know the details (Marauder 57 didn't tell me work was done on the head(s) til after I bought the car and found a loose head bolt hanging in the hoses on the drivers side fender), but at least one head was worked on by a sloppy tech, and most of the valve cover bolts were slightly loose when I decided to check things with a wrench after finding the stray head bolt.


I've known of a slight oil leak/seep from the rear of the passenger valve cover for most of the time I've owned the car, and figured it was the cover's gasket. Now I wonder if maybe it was the o-ring?

I didn't notice or realize what I was seeing, perhaps, when I changed the plugs for the first time 12K miles ago, so a build up would have drained into the chamber when I removed the plug. I vaguely recall wet threads on at least one plug. At the time I kind of figured oil leaks would be normal for a high performance v8 being bought used (no longer loved by the seller) and with 69K miles.

Has this happened to anyone else? Should I expect to be able to re-use the o-ring, or buy a new set?




by the way, don't pay attention to the following smilies - my 3-yr old wants to add some for fun:

[Zack]

Loosen the valve cover, then take a pick and rotate the gasket 180 degrees and tighten it back down.
It may fix the problem.

[Paul]

O.k., this is the first time I've done this on the MM. Pretty much every thing I do, I do for the first time, so it always takes longer. Here's the blow by blow: I didn't plan on this being a project for today, but I decided to try Zack's idea about loosening the valve cover and shifting the o-ring - that won't take long, right? So, I loosened the valve cover this morning at about 9:30 to see about doing the shift. About 5 PM this afternoon, I finished putting the passenger valve cover back on. OMFG!, what a bit** that was. First, I dropped the #4 spark plug tube o-ring into the head when I loosened the valve cover and tried to shift it.

While trying to fish it out with one of those spring-loaded retractable claw thingies, the claw came off, and stayed in the head with the o-ring. Then as I tried to get the cover off, I got the gasket out of whack, and dropped two more o-rings in. So, conceding you really cannot get the passenger cover off without removing the motor mount nut on the same side, I find out the deep 3/4 socket you need to use still isn't long enough without an extension. After much searching, I admit to myself - I just don't have one in the 1/2" drive I need. Happily, my neighbor has an extension he lets me borrow. I finally remove the nut, jack the engine up, disconnect the fuel line and heater hose (clamped that off with vise grips so I wouldn't lose too much antifreeze), and get the cover off. Fish out the o-rings and claw, clean off the mating surfaces, and find out the gasket was stretched in removal and is now too big. So, thinking about heat-shrink tubing, I try setting the cover in the sun, heat it up, massage the gasket into place, after a while it had shrunk almost enough but just wasn't getting there. So I pulled out the propane torch and heated it a bit faster, and got 'er done. Put the car back together, and started it up. No apparent problems - no radiator leak, no fuel leak, no oil spraying out. Tomorrow I'll drive it , get it fully warmed up, and check for leaks and any overheating. My luck, I'll need to spend most of tomorrow burping the damn cooling system. And the damn valve cover will probably still leak.

[RR|Suki]

Just get the little rings from the dealer, I had the same leak and it's gone now, save yourself the pain and just get new ones