Valve cover

[Andy Santoro]

I am going to change the valve cover gasket on my 94 325is. The paint is flaking off on the valve cover, and I don’t want to have the cams exposed while I clean up and repaint the cover, so I am thinking of buying a new one I can have ready to pop on after I clean up the head/sealing surface. They are like $240. More than I thought. I considered buying a used one, but the ones I have seen will need to be cleaned up and painted, and may be warped or cracked. Even used they are $100, do it hardly seems worth it. Any thoughts on the cheapest/best way to do this? 240K, and to my knowledge the valve cover has never been off before.

Thanks in advance for any help

[XnWarden]

I would just cover the cams with a trash bag while I cleaned the valve cover and painted it

Sent from my VS987 using Tapatalk

[jclausen]

Cover the cams and shut the hood your thinking to hard about this

[sdean911]

What he said.

[JEC928]

1. Order new valve cover seal kit, and buy engine paint or black wrinkle paint at auto parts store. Get strong degreaser like Simple Green, wire brushes, and stiff bristle brush too. Get oil-proof RTV too.

2. Remove old valve cover. The bolts are these typically Germanic overcomplicated 2-part studs: an upper bolt passes through the cover's hole and screws into a lower stud that screws into the head. The seal kit should come with all new rubber washers for these.

3. Place plastic trashbag over cams with magnets to hold it down and keep dust out of the cam zone.

4. Use plastic scraper to clean head sealing surface in the two spots where RTV is required. Be diligent to collect any junk that falls into cam area.

5. Scrub the living fack out of the valve cover with degreaser and scrape the RTV off. I used a big tupperware under-bed-storage container as a washing tub and ruined it LOL. Spray all degreaser off with the hose and let it dry.

6. Paint the front visible section of the valve cover as you see fit. Personally I love the wrinkle black, but the choice is yours... as long as you use paint spec'd for automotive underhood use, not dayglo hobby junk from Michael's. While it dries get busy with soft cloth and degreaser on the plastic beauty cover that protects the coil packs from water.

7. Don't forget the RTV during reassembly. Only a couple spots where it's needed, see the Pelican How To for good pictures. Also do NOT overtorque the 2-pc studs as you'll strip the threads. Look up the torque, I don't remember LOL.

[scooper]

paint or powder coat it. Prep the surface first if you're going to paint it. shop will sand blast it for powder coating. Use a trash bag.

[MisterM52]

All of the above.
In a nutshell: Take it off, paint that part with black engine enamel, do proper prep work of course. do your thing, put it all back on, close the hood???? Profit!
And go your merry way.

[Andy Santoro]

Thanks for all of the help. The trash bag and magnets are a good idea. I’m gonna look into powder coating. I read the cover is mag, so I’ll be looking to use glass beads rather than sandblast. The existing paint is not just peeling on the exposed part, but the whole cover. Paint flakes everywhere. Every time I pull a plug, I’m worried about paint flakes getting down into the comb chamber. I’ve never had the cover off, and I’ve been running the engine over 240K miles.