SurfnSoCal

Rrobello and I are gonna polish our valve covers this weekend...and we wer eboth discussing how hard it might be to get them back on...and get a good seal.

Hs anyone done this? hard to get off and on? Also, do you have to disconnect the battery while doing this?

rrobello

hello anyone???? I know some of you have done this, my concern is do you need to reboot the system?

sodaman

rrobello, I have not done this. But all you need to worry about is if you unhook electrical connectors it is always a good idea to unplug battery. No harm will come of it. But as a previous mechanic I never unplugged the battery to do a job like this, as it would take too long. Shouldnt be too difficult, maybe a bracket or too, and unplug some connectors. Good luck

SurfnSoCal

how about getting a good seal when re-installing the cover?

FordRacing

I'm had mine off and on 3 times now. Getting them to seal is not a problem. I didnt disconnect my battery but it's probably not a bad idea. It took about 15 minutes per cover to remove.
Good luck polishing them; I finally gave up because I could'nt make it look good enough, to many things to try to polish around. I settled and finally painted them.
If you are going to polish them I highly recommend putting a coat of clear over the top, mine started to dull within a couple days.

rrobello

I polished mine by hand while they were still on the car and it came out nice, but I want them perfect so I thats why I am taking them off to finish the job, I will be doing a cool paint scheme using the polished look as trim in my design, once I find the right paint.....

nascaracing

So far I've only taken off the passenger side valve cover, I'm painting mine ford Red. The gasket is re-usable, and pre-formed, so there is only one way to put it back on. Also checked with Ford on the replacement cost should I have screwed them up. $15.00 for both sides. I re-used mine making sure that it was properly placed in the valve cover itself before re-installing. You should however make sure you do a crossover tightening sequence when you re-install, making sure that you get a level seal across the cover itself. Was also told by Ford that there is no Torque value to tightening the bolts. When putting the valve cover back on I wrapped the upper half in ceran wrap to protect the paint job I did, as on the passenger side you have to slide it between the wiring to get it back on, same for taking it off. I plan to take off the driver side this weekend to paint it. If you wanted to wait, I will tell you after the weekend about any problems I had with it. Also I did not disconnect the battery, and there should be no reason to re-program the computer.

rrobello

no torque value? so you cant over tighten them??? this was another concern of mine.

nascaracing

NO, no torque value, but I would say that you could over tighten them to the point of snapping of the head... :shock: Just use common sense, if it's feels tight then that is it.

rrobello

good....thanks I wasnt going to go gunho on them but I know on some things slightly tight is enough and if you get them tighter it starts to screw other stuff up, like on the K&N intake the brackets, tightening them too tight (although you can continue to tighten them) will pinch off the tube and rubber gasket and cause damage but thanks again.

Blue Knight

Exactly.

Valve cover bolts should be snug, but not torqued down tight. If you torque them down, you can warp the cover, compress the gasket, and create a leak.

Snug them down, and do it in a crossing order like you do for lug nuts, and it should seat just fine. Run it a bit, and if you see seepage, give each another 1/2 turn.

I don't really think the order of tightening matters, since you aren't intending to compress the gasket, but I cross pattern just to be sure.

38special

nascaracing

I plan on painting mine Ford Red too. To match my CAI.

38special

I will be using my friend's torque wrench and will take readings on all of the cover bolts and give you folks what the torque is on them.