Head Gaskets and Valve Covers

It is not an easy job. This is a major repair that only someone who is qualified should undertake.

If you mean a bolt with a head size of 24mm (M16) then the recommended torque setting will be 210Nm but if you mean a head size of 36mm (M24) then the recommended setting will be 710Nm.

Just take the valve off. Scrape the old gasket off and be carful not to get it in the crank case. It'll get in the oil if you do and can ruin your engine conponents. Then put the new gasket on and put the valve cover back on. Oh yeah take the sparkplugs out first and remember which one went where.

I was told you don't need them, just put silicone on the grommet rings so that they will form to(seal) the valve housing better.

Absolutely, yes!

If the valve cover is leaking it may let oil flow down the head and make the Head gasket appear to be leaking. Clean the engine and then use oil dye or watch for leaks. If there is a coolant leak it is not the valve cover.

Not likely but possible.

It is possible but highly unlikely. If it were leaking oil from a blown head gasket you would have lots of other symptoms such as overheating, coolant mixed with the oil, white smoke from the exhaust, and loss of coolant with no apparent leak.

It can if the cylinder fills with coolant.

5-Sfe produces 135hp 145 ft/lbs of torque

170 nm on all the head settings

injector setting is 8 nm

Depends on the event that lead to the head gasket giving out. What happened to cause it?

Is it smoking? Is there coolant mixing or oil mixing? Any knock?

It could be a simple-ish afternoon job or it could require a full rebuild/swap due to internal damage.

Loss of coolant with no apparent leak. White smoke from the exhaust especially at startup. Oil level overfull. Air bubbles escaping from the radiator with the cap off hot. A white foamy substance on the underside of the oil fill cap. All of these are symptoms of a blown head gasket or cracked head.

There's only one way to repair a blown head gasket and that is to replace the gasket. You must also check to make sure that the head is not cracked or warped If it is the head will either have to be replaced or machined depending on the severity of the damage.

Look for leaking antifreeze/coolant. Usually you can see it leaking around the top of the engine. Also check your oil, if it looks milky it has been mixed with coolant and you intake manifold gasket is leaking. That being said, it is possible to have a leaking intake gasket with no sign of leaking antifreeze. Most intake manifold issues/leaks are coupled with poor engine performance and even sputtering and lack of power.

RTV is simply a kind of silicone in a tube. It just means room temperature vulcanizing & all auto parts stores have it.

Either when you see stuff leaking from the engine, or when it fails to pass a compression test. Water in the coolant, coolant in the oil, cylinders filling with water, white smoke from the exhaust or unexplained coolant loss are all indicators that a head gasket has failed.

You pressure test the cooling system

I would certainly change them and have done so when I've replaced head gaskets on my vehicles. They don't cost much.

If you are adept at 'reading' plugs, and they look ok, and you clean them, and you re-gap them to specs, MAYBE it would be fine to reuse your old ones. But to me it's cheaper just to replace these items which do wear out over time anyway.

Some spark plugs in some engines have an expected 100,000 miles' life to them. But I'd change them anyway while I was down and dirty doing the the head gasket work.

If all that is wrong is a blown head gasket and even a cracked head it is much easier and cheaper to just fix it than to replace the engine. The labor to replace the engine plus the cost of the engine would be far greater than fixing the one you now have. This is assuming the engine is not worn out already.

There are 2 of them. They are sandwiched between the heads and the engine block. In order to replace them the intake manifold and heads must be removed and exhaust manifold disconnected. Always replace both of them on a V6.

It's 44lb then two 90 degree turns

If it is a small block V8 with cast iron heads torque the bolts in a criss cross pattern to 30 lb/ft.