16v Valve gasket results

[mattwagner@softhome.net (M. W.)]

Well I finished the job, and it took about 3 times longer than I thought it
would. But it beats paying somebody a few hundred bucks, and afterwards
dinner and beer never tasted so good. A few things:

Some of the outer bolts on the valve cover were completely loose, ie
turnable by hand. The old gasket(rubber) wasnt brittle, and actually looked
like it was in ok shape. Makes me wonder if a shop I took it to a few months
back fiddled with it.

The Bentley said to torque the valve cover bolts to 87 in,  but when I did
this I noticed a lot of overhang on the corners of the gasket. A mechanic in
the shop said I should only tighten the bolts until it starts to squeeze out
like that and stop. I got paranoid about leaks so I loosened them up again
and tried to set them so they wouldnt squeeze out so much but I was only
successful in doing that on a couple of the corners. I went ahead and did it
to 87 in anyway going by what the mechanic said left it rather loose. The
left side(while facing the car) looks kind of bad, and there is a little bit
of oil that was squeezed out. On the right side, the little half circle
piece has a bit of oil squeezed out on the top. None of it is dripping or
running, its just along the edges of the cover and the gasket. I'm guessing
this is from loosening and retightening which I'm thinking now was a mistake
since I didn't accomplish much from doing this(did manage to get more
clearance for the spark plug holes though).

The underside of the valve cover was pretty foul looking. Lot of dark brown
oil stains. I hosed it down with carb cleaner a couple times and let it soak
then wiped it off. Some of it came off, but it still looks rather 'burnt'
looking. Is this normal? There were some rather thick looking goopy oil
spots on the screws for the brackets that were around the camshafts and in
other nooks and crannies as well. Didn't look too good.

I actually had 3 bolts in the rear of the upper manifold. 2 of the bolts
went into the engine block, and one came from it and had 4 wire contacts
hooked onto it with a nut. All 3 were attached to two brackets which were
bolted onto the engine block. I didn't see a way to 'rotate' the manifold so
I pretty much took the whole thing off except for the accelerator cable. The
Bentley said to put these back on with 20 lbs, so that's what I used, but I
swear somebody really really tightened those suckers on there beyond that
because it took me forever to get them off.

Anyway, I'm hoping that little bit of oil I saw was normal...? I'd really
hate to have to do this again, even though now it wouldnt take nearly as
long. I'd like to change the the oil pan gasket too as there is quite a bit
of oil coming off it... not to mention the whole front of the engine... I'm
really hoping it was just the valve gasket...

Matt Wagner
mattwagner@softhome.net