My friends ka24de has an oil leak around the valve cover and we pinpointed to the worn gasket.
I took a look and it looks like just a few hex bolts around the cover. So is it just take off the attached spark plug boots and get other shit out of the way and take out the bolts? or is there something more complicated to take out the cover.
Just trying to get an idea of time consumption and making sure that it isn’t harder than it looks.
Also should I put Permatex Gasket Former around with the new gasket also or what is the ‘proper’ procedure? Should I get the gasket from Nissan or any jobber (Napa for example) places would be fine? How much would it run for?
I took a look at the FSM and I couldn’t find the proper torque specs. Any help would be great.
It shouldn’t take long… maybe 1/2" hour. Just the nuts on there… you need to just disconnect the hoses connected to it (IACV, etc…) and the spark plugs.
I would take a razor blade and gently scrape off any residue from previous gasket makers. You can use some brake cleaner to get rid of any oil from the mating surface as well for a good seal.
The only place you want to put the Permatex gasket maker is in the half moon cam gear seals. You don’t need it around the whole perimeter of the valve cover.
As far as tightening goes, you just want to go from the extreme corners, tighten down the center and then symetrically screw down the rest of the nuts. The key idea is just to have the valve cover evenly torqued down so it doesn’t leak. I usually just finger tighten them all down progressively until I can’t torque them down any further. Then I just go another 1/4 turn using a ratchet.
While you’re it there it would be convenient to pull off the top timing chain guide as well. It’s not needed and may cause some rattling issues if the chain has a little slack in the future.
Just clean the mating surface on the head add apply a little bit of liquid gasket, then put the new gasket on and install the valve cover. Dont tighten too much those bolts like to strip.