On Monday, Sep 29, 2003, at 20:46 US/Pacific, Galen Bergthold wrote:
The reason they stop is that the cover itself has little "bumps" at each bolt hole, which prevents you from over-compressing the gasket. But the gasket should squeeze out a little bit.
Maybe there are different versions of valve covers. Mine doesn't have bumps or anything else that would prevent the gasket from being crushed, unless the bolts bottomed out in their holes before completely squishing the gasket.
OK, I found the spec for the valve cover bolts, tighten them to 87 in lbs.
I found that even 87 in/lbs is too much. While doing a cam swap, I installed the valve cover using new gaskets, and torqued it to 87 in/lbs. Unfortunately, I was off a tooth on the intake/exhaust index and had to pull it back apart. I discovered that the plug hole gasket had compressed to the point that it was very difficult to get the spark plug socket in/out of the holes. When reassembling it the second time, I backed off the torque value to 45-50 in/lbs, which squished the plug hole gasket just to the point of giving a little resistance to the plug socket. That was over 6k miles ago, and no leaks whatsoever.
Oh, and just a reminder - don't forget the manifold support brackets underneath the rear of the intake, that bolt to the block.
--Holland
