How to Remove a Valve Cover to Replace Gasket

Video Transcript

"Hi, I am Mark Blocker on behalf of Expert Village. In this we are going to cover removing the valve cover. In our previous we covered getting the accessibility and we've got all of the items removed. To remove the valve cover, this particular model vehicle is held down by four nuts. To remove it we simply need to remove the four nuts and these washers, the metal washers with the rubber seals in them and that will allow us to freely remove the valve cover. These are ten millimeter nuts. When you remove the nuts it is a good idea to have a place to put the nuts rather than lay them down inside the engine compartment of the hood because it is very easy to lose them or lose sight of them or forget about them. So I always keep a little table or a little magnetic tray for putting the spare parts and various tools in and try to avoid leaving them laying around the engine compartment while you are working around the vehicle. It's a real easy way, doesn't matter how long you have been doing it, to forget a tool or lose a nut or leave something in that engine compartment and that can cause a major road hazard by driving down the road with spare parts under your hood. To remove those little rubber seals underneath the hold down bolt or nut, sometimes you have to grab them with the pliers and just give them a little twist. Just wiggle them free a little bit. They should slide out fairly easily. Then just go around to each one. Sometimes like on these deeper ones, it is real hard to get those out. It is not required to remove the valve cover to get that metal flat washer and rubber seal out from underneath it. It just has a tendency to make things go a lot easier sometimes. Then I just continue once those are broken free a little bit. Sometimes it can be hard to grip because of the oil on them and what not. A screwdriver or another utensil will allow you to get up underneath of it. Just kind of wiggle it around and pry it up. Like I said once you've got them lose it isn't necessary to remove these all the way. It just makes it an easier job when you remove the valve cover. After removing those, the valve cover should be free to be removed. Basically rock it a little bit, break it free. Lift it straight up, off and out of the way. Now that we have got the valve cover off we need to remove the gasket, clean it up and prepare it for installing a new gasket. Please watch our next segment on "Removing the old gasket and Inspection"."