Leaking Turbo valve covers. What's the best thing to do?

chrisp · 06-19-2003, 07:16 AM

Do I need to have them machined flat or should I just replace/upgrade gaskets and I should be good to go? It looks as if there is some sort of black gasket under there now. What's the best gasket.

Do I really need to drain the oil out of the car or just catch what's lost when the cover comes off?

....and just one last check the turbo covers are finned and the standard SC covers are not? My car has always had the finned covers for the two years I have had it so I have had nothing to compare to. Photos of turbo covers are easy to find but non-turbos are not.

Rick Lee · Rick Lee's Garage

Unless you notice uneven or nicked edge surfaces, you can probably get away with a new gasket (green) set and CORRECT torque specs. I think it's 5.6 ft./lbs. and the gaskets are pretty sensitive tho that. You could also throw on a set of reusable silicone gaskets, which will pay for themselves eventually and have a pretty good reputation for stopping leaks.

sammyg2 · 06-19-2003, 07:36 AM

You can lap them if they are not flat.
Get a piece of window glass at least 1' x 1'.
lay it on the flatest surface you can find and then put the valve cover on the glass. Push down on it and use a feeler guage to check for warpage.
If it's warped you can get some emory cloth sheets and using the glass, lap the surface. This works slick if you only have to take a very small amount of metal off.

Clean the snot out of them and reinstall with the best gaskets you can find, paying attention to the surface of the cam towers they bolt to. It also has to be clean, flat, and free of dings etc. Use the proper toque and your leaks will go away.

When the engine is shut off some oil will run from the tank to the sump. If the car's level that oil will leak out the oil return tubes and run on the ground if the lower valve cover is off.

You might be able to jack one side of the car as high as possible to minimize the oil leakage. The driver's side is easier, the passenger side is harder to get the oil to stop.

I'd just drain the oil, but if it's fresh you'd hate to throw it away.
Still it's better to replace good oil than to have it running down your arm as you are laying under a car trying to clean a gasket surface.

BTW some oil leaks appear to be coming from the valve cover when they are actually leaking from a different place. Sorry, had to throw that out there.

chrisp · 06-19-2003, 07:44 AM

I don't mind a quart or two coming out of the covers. That's easy. I was just trying to avoid draining all 10 or so with a full oil change. It's not a big deal either way I just want to take out the 10 quart oil draining step if I can.

I am still a little confused with your response. With the oil continue to slowly flow from the return tubes into a cover-less valve area or will a certain amount (my 1-2 quart reference above) come out and then stop?

1fastredsc · 06-19-2003, 08:29 AM

Well, you could drain it into an ultra clean storage and reuse the oil. But i and probably everyone else here will frown upon it because of the very high risk of contamination. I'd make sure that the oil is indeed beyond the shadow of a doubt leaking from the valve covers. Then proceed to replace the oil and probably use the old oil in some beater vehicle that doesn't really matter. For reference, in my case i'd just give the barely used oil to my dad and let him use it in his van.

sammyg2 · 06-19-2003, 08:39 AM

yes, the oil will drain from the tank through the scavenging pump and continue to drain out the valve covers unless you drain the tank down or tilt the car to make that oil run to the other side of the engine. It will be a very slow trickle but it will continue.
I don't know exactly how much will drain before it gets to equilibrium between the sump and tank, never tried that.
I know that when I drain my oil (usually cold, yeah I know) I get what seems to be about 3 or 4 quarts out of the sump and the rest out of the tank.
A good test would be to drai the sump and not the tank, and let the sump contimue draining to see how much actually runs out over time.
Maybe someone else here already knows the answer.

Neilk · 06-19-2003, 08:49 AM

Just jack the car up on the side that want to remove the valve cover. If you don't have a jack, use the tire jack and just put something under the rear tire to keep that side higher.

chrisp · 06-19-2003, 08:52 AM

I'll start with just the sump and see what happens.

chrisp · 06-19-2003, 01:10 PM

Is the dealer part okay here or do I need something from the aftermarket? They have the most recent supercession (-07). Of course they are more expensive than PP by far but I can do the work this weekend.

Is the dealer part the fabled "green" gasket?

Jdub · 06-19-2003, 01:47 PM

Isn't the correct torque on the nuts 5.6 INCH./lbs?

I use the Real brand red silicone gaskets and they work great.

John

Tim Polzin · 06-19-2003, 01:56 PM

Here is a quote from our host in the valve adjustment tech article:

"I was not able to locate a torque specification in the factory manuals, but Richard Lebens found one in the Carrera manuals that says to torque it to 6 ft-lbs. Make sure that you torque them down in a diagonal pattern, and it is advised to start at 4 ft-lbs, and then after all of them are tight, re-torque to 6 ft-lbs."

Are you sure the valve covers are leaking. Could the leak be coming from the valve rocker shafts?

Tim

Mike Kast · Mike Kast's Garage

I recently drained the oil from the sump and left the tank alone. I reused the oil because It was late and I couldn't get oil at the time or I wouldn't have, it wasn't worth the trouble. The amount of oil that may have been coming from the tank was minimal as far as I could tell. you know how oil just drips forever out of an empty oil container? It seemed no more than that. I think I'd rather dump the sump than pull the valve covers with the sump full of oil...but I haven't had the valve covers off yet... I don't know whats in there... I'm assuming it the valves, and some oil