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Anyone who knows about valve cover gasket replacement

Dr. Sievers

Dr. Sievers

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I want to start by apologizing, Goatman, this is not a pontiac vehicle, I just don't belong to a honda forum because well... If this wasn't my wife's car I wouldn't own it.

I have a 2004 Honda civic LX 1.7L I4. Okay the problem is the othe day I had replaced the 4 grommets and the gasket for the valve cover. Well the grommets are just fine no issues there, but, the gasket is leaking out of the belt drive side.

I checked to make sure that the gasket was lined in properly and I made sure to torque the bolts back down to 7 pounds of pressure just like the book said to. Well at first I thought that it could be just the book is wrong and it needs more pressure because seven pounds of pressure just doesn't seem like enough. So I tried to drop it to about nine and a half. I didn't want to go over board, and it still is leaking. Do you guys think it could be just a bad gasket or is there anything else I could have done wrong: Below is my exact process.

1) First removed the "engine cover" (a samll 12"x6" piece of plastic)
2) pulled the coils and removed the wire bar from on top of the valve cover
3) cleared some space in the compartment to make work easier.
4) pulled the valve cover off (got to use a shorty flat head to pop it out of place
5) used a grommet pryer to pull the grommets and used my fingers to pull the old gasket
6) replaced grommets and gasket
7) slid valve cover back into place
8) tightened bolts to 7 pound of pressure
9) put everything back where I found it

2 days later

1) repeated 1-3
2) tightend bolts down to 9 pounds of pressure
3) replaced everything

2 days later

Oil is still leaking and I have a replacement gasket coming because... well duh.

Just want to see if I missed a step maybe.
 
you didnt spread a light coat of silicone gasket sealer. It makes up for minor variations in the surfaces which might otherwise leak and it comes off easily. As far as tightening I would just use what I call a wrist tightness as opposed to putting your whole arm into it.
 
OMG! I feel like a dumbass now... thank you melsg5.

BTW sal or goatman or mel, if you guys want to delete this now you can. thank you for your patience and co-operation

sorry nvm please don't delete yet I have other issues arrising from this.
 
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Your welcome anytime, glad I could help
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Okay so now i'm having a new issue. when I accelerate I am getting a fluttering sound occasionally. When I drove to work this morning, I drive about 12 miles to work, this happened about 4-5 times. Generally around 3000rpms the engine would get this fluttering sound. I have been told the spark plug being loose may be to blame so I will check that but I wanted to see if I could get any other opinions.
 
a loose plug should make noise all the time not just at a particular rpm. Since it's a certain RPM a wild guess would be a loose heat shield on an exhaust component that vibrates at that RPM. Really hard to say though without seeing the car. Try bring up the engine speed slowly in neutral with the hood open to see if you can narrow down the source.
 
It seems to bog down a touch too so that's why I thought well maybe if the plug wasn't that loose. But I can't see a heat shield doing that. I'll try the hood popped thing during my lunch break here in just a bit and get back to you on this.

Okay so I checked it out. i no longer think it has to do with RPM's now I think it has to do with speed. I can't get it to do it while in park I have to be going about 30+ MPH and with a warm engine. I also still have my check engine light coming back on. What really sucks is I have a service department here at work and they want to charge me a hundred bucks just to pull the codes. forget that.

Anywhoot. So 30+ mph is causing it. once it's warm I have a rough idle. when I rev it up slowly and then pull off it also seems to drop rpms really fast to the point that I think it's almost killing the engine. I checked to make sure that all of my bolts where down properly and I found one that needed to be tightened just a hair. that ones good now. The only thing I can't check at this current moment is the plugs just because I don't have the extension for it here with me. I, a couple of times heard almost a sound like when a turbo spools. not now but earlier and before I had replaced the gasket. So?

Also the sound it is making sounds like Tick,Tick,Tick,Tick,Tick,Tick,Tick,Tick,Tick,Tick,Tick,Tick,Tick,Tick,Tick,Tick,Tick but really fast.
 
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did it make the noise before you changed the cover gasket? could it be a plug wire grounding and you are hearing the spark, that would cause rough running and maybe a code.
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No it didn't make the noise till after I changed the gasket and grommets out. This is new at least from what I can tell. Other than the last week or so I haven't been driving this car. This is my wife's car. it's just she's stay at home mom and I'm working dad so if only one car is working I have to use it.

As far as a plug wire grounding. I haven't checked that yet. I have one more long break during today so when I get it I'll go take a look and see if I can see anything.


EDIT: sorry about the random long intervals in between answers. I have a lot of down time at work generally but today I have customers, yeah! maybe I can sell a car.
 
it sounds like you have to carefully go over what you did, you may have knocked something loose while changing the gasket, so a vacuum line is possible, also a plug wire not fully seated could be arcing. I cannt believe you work at a dealer and they wont check the car for you, that sucks.
 
dude I work at a very very high end dealer and they have no one in the shop and all I want is for them to run the codes and just verify what I'm thinking and they said 100 bucks just for that.

When i say very very high end I mean that three months ago we had an enzo ferrari on our lot marked at 2.3 million dollars. We have Jags, Mas, M-B, BMW, Lambo, Lotus all used on those but still.

Oh I did listen carefully and I think I can hear a hissing sound. So one of the techs on his way out stopped while I was listening to my car and told me that I can take a hose and put it to my ear and it'll help amplify the sound so I can find it easier.
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