[engineer20]

Is retorquing the valve cover gasket an easy DIY job? I just had the gakest replaced about 2years or 30k miles ago and i was told by the dealer ,it was leaking oil again. a quick lube place told me, maybe i just need it retorqued, rather than another gasket replacement. is this right? i called the place where i got it fixed/replaced at 2 years ago and they said they could retorque it for me for free and it'd take only abotu 20 minutes for them to do, but is it easy to DIY? thanks. and will retorquing it solve the minor valve cover leak, or is it possible i need it replaced again? first replacement was at 130k, and the car's now at 160k.

 

[engineer20]

17 foot-lbs is pretty high to me (204 inch-lbs). Torque on my Focus is 60 inch-lbs, not that it matters.

If it was torqued beyond 17 foot-lbs, I wouldn't back it off and re-tongue unless you are replacing the gasket. The gasket could have been over compressed and likely will not "pop" back out.

Not a bad DIY, but you need a torque wrench - http://www.harborfreight.com/14-in-drive-click-type-torque-wrench-61277.html - and you need to alternately tighten in three steps as above - i.e. alternately tighten until each bolt is at 72 inch-lbs, then alternately tighten until each bolt is at 144 inch-lbs, then alternately tighten to 200 inch-lbs.

If the shop will do it for free, I would probably let them.

It can't hurt and might fix the leak, but it might be that the gasket still needs to be replaced.

Actually, the gasket replacement isn't a bad DIY either - you just remove the bolts, remove the cover, clean the mating surfaces with brake cleaner, install the new gasket and re-torque the bolts as above.

Thanks. Spekaing of spark plugs, I saw this guy teach you on youtube how to test the compression on your car, it's not car specifric and very general, but how do you test for compression? You plug that thing in where the spark plug goes? it's sort of confusing. thanks