[Vwdiesel] cam cover strips ... leak cures

[The President]

Rewritten in um er English...


VW etc always suggest a new gasket every time you lift the valve cover. 
'Cod's wallop'  Over a period of time the gasket will shrink and harden and 
will need replacing BUT...
Periodic nipping up of the 10mm nuts even with those metal bars will deform 
the flatness of the cover. It makes the area around the nuts concave as 
looked at from outside.
Certainly with an older gasket and to some degree with a new gasket the 
sealing pressure between the studs is greatly reduced. Thus you get oil 
seepage.
Further tightening works a little but distorts the lid more.
The picture shows the inside distiortion.
The section of 'I' beam is just convenient to re shape the distortion.

Does it work?

....Definitely...

I now never tighten the nuts beyond what I can do with the ratchet wrench 
head clenched in my fist  and nipped up. Get the all in one corrado gasket 
which means a change of studs but no bits of rubber to misallign...

http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/1064/imgp2967valvecoverdistortioncr.jpg

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