Retorque VaIve Covers after gasket change

[G_Raw]

Hey all this conversation started in "What did you do today" . But I changed my valve cover gaskets etc etc. Since the bolts are notorious for backing out on our trucks I've read that many people pull the plenum and retorque all the valve cover bolts after 500 miles post change. I did replace my VC bolts and washers ( thank goodness cause one of the bolts under my lower plenum on drivers side cover wasn't even in when I pulled the plenum). All parts used on this job are OEM.

Just wondering if you folks retorque or not? Didn't find anything in FSM about retorqueing ( EM 30 to EM 60 are the pages I referenced for the job I believe.)

 

[Bad Luck]

Just wondering if you folks retorque or not?

Yes I did

 

[G_Raw]

Yes I did

Did you find that any had loosened up?

 

[mtbtim]

I never re-torqued them. I believe the problem with the valve cover bolts coming "loose" isn't what people think it is. It's not that the bolt is coming loose but rather the rubber on the washers starts to shrink from the heating and cooling cycles of the engine. Even if you put blue loctite on the valve cover bolts, the shrinking of the washer rubber would lessen the torque on the valve covers. It's probably been 60k miles since I did the valve cover job on my 2000 4runner and I haven't detected any significant leaks. Could there be some oil seepage going on with the washer rubber shrinking over time? I think there must be. Am I worried enough about it to pull my plenums off every so often to check? No, I'm not. My advice is to drive your rigs and don't worry about it. If you detect a noticeable leak that's now dripping onto your exhaust manifold, that's when you pull off your plenums and give the bolts a re-torquing. And this is coming from a guy who has the tendency of being a bit anal and a bit OCD on things.

 

[gamefreakgc]

One thing that's great about replacing the upper intake with a supercharger is that I can reach almost all the bolts at any point. Yes, I do re-torque them because the rubber does shrink and dry up. The outside bolts are the worst offenders when leaking.

 

[phattyduck]

Another thing to pay attention to - you'll need to go around the valve cover multiple times (I think I did around 4?) to get all the valve cover bolts torqued evenly and fully. If you do just 1 or 2 times around, you'll have loose bolts right from the start.

-Charlie

 

[liljoedafishho]

Just saying-I hand tightened my vc bolts and it stopped my leaking issues at 205k miles

 

[3bears]

I was doing multiple things at the time, not just vc gaskets. I installed my vc gaskets...torqued correct..worked down slow and even...increasing each time and made multiple times around and called it a night. Next day hit them all again and they all took some love. No leaks since.....maybe about 40k ago.
so....thats the method I like, do it, let it sit overnigt, do it again....but a lot of us dont have time for that.

 

[WeakSauz]

I never re-torqued them and changed the gaskets about 20k miles ago. No leaks.

One thing to be careful with is over-torquing these. Pretty easy to crack the VC itself, then you're going to want to throw a tool

 

[BostonJon]

i replaced my bolts and rubber washers when I did my VC gaskets last year. a few weeks later they were loose again. i added some loctite to the threads and torqued them again. havent checked them in a while, but no leaks or seepage so far.