Hey guys,

So I’ve just recently in the last few days changed my valve cover gaskets in my 04 Coupe 6MT and spark plugs as the gaskets were leaking pretty bad. I was having an issue with oil still leaking out on my passenger side after I got the valve covers back on so after a few startups, I took it all back off and come to find the gasket had moved out of place, I fixed that and out everything back together and was on my way with no problem, or so I thought.

I started to notice how strong the smell of burning oil was throughout the three drives I’ve been on since the repair but wrote it off to be oil that had leaked during the process taking its time to burn off. After about a 30 minute drive I reached my destination only to get out and find a good amount of smoke coming from the engine bay on my passenger side, so I opened the hood to take a look and below the valve cover there is oil EVERYWHERE and I mean EVERYWHERE. The alternator is covered, along with pretty much everything else on that side, and after about 45 minutes of searching for the source, I can’t find any trace, and my oil level doesn’t seem to have moved but there definitely seems to be more oil in that area than there was before so I’m going to wait overnight to check my dipstick again and see if the oil level has changed.

What do you all think? Possibly just a bunch of oil taking a long time to fully burn off? Or does it sound like a leak to you? I’ve checked around the entire valve cover and don’t see any indication of oil leaking out of the cover anywhere. I am very new to the VQ platform and doing engine work in general, so I please ask that instead of asking “why didn’t you do this?” or “why did you do that” that I can get some helpful tips from some people who have had this issue or know some common spots for oil leaks to check. I just want to be able to enjoy my car again If you have any questions for me that can help you give me any tips please feel free to ask. Here are some pics of the leakage

 

When doing the valve cover gaskets you need to use Permatex Ultra Grey (Or whatever gasket maker you prefer, Hondabond is excellent and basically the equivalent of permatex ultra grey) around the front corners of the cover where it mates to the cam actuators. It will leak like crazy if you don't.

You can always use the UV dye and a black light to see where it's oozing from, stuff works great. Just make sure you do it at nighttime, add to the crankcase, turn on the black light, turn on engine, look for the glowing ooze it's VERY noticeable.

I strongly recommend you drain/fill the crankcase afterwards before you drive anywhere or you will end up with UV dye on EVERYTHING as it blows around under the car.

EM - Engine Mechanical, page 43 in the FSM.

 

Well I was laying around unable to sleep thinking about fixing this oil leak so I got up and I just finished redoing the whole process and put down gasket maker as you said this time, gotta let the car sit for 24 hours for the gasket maker to dry but hopefully this fixes the problem thank you!

 

Why didn't you read and follow the replacement instructions in the FSM and have all the necessary materials on hand before you started?
Did you scrape off any residual gasket material prior to installing the new gaskets?

EM 43

"Use scraper to remove all traces of liquid gasket from cylinder head and camshaft bracket (No. 1).INSTALLATION1. Apply liquid gasket of 3.0 mm (0.12 in) diameter to positionshown in the figure [both edges of camshaft bracket (No. 1)] (onboth banks).Use Genuine RTV Silicone Sealant or equivalent. Refer toGI-47, "RECOMMENDED CHEMICAL PRODUCTS ANDSEALANTS" .
First, apply it to engine longitudinal direction [5.0 mm (0.197in) + 5.0 mm (0.197 in) side in figure"

 

I am very new to working on engines (this was my first time ever taking any engine components apart) and besides things like pads and rotors I don’t really have too much experience with working on cars but I can’t afford the price I would have to pay to have a mechanic change the gasket and honestly you can never learn if you don’t start somewhere and when this is all said and done I will be more satisfied knowing I did it myself, I was well aware that what should’ve been a simple install could turn into the fiasco that it is now but like I said, gotta start from somewhere.

I’m going to be completely honest with you, I had clue about the existence of the FSM until I found myself on this forum but I will be following that for any work that is ever done on my car in the future.

At 1 am last night I went outside and restarted this whole replacement, triple checking everything in the process following the guidelines of the FSM, hopefully when I turn the car on tomorrow morning everything is fine

 

Well we all learn and when I began there were no on line FSM's, no YouTube Videos, and none of the electronics except for points, plugs, rotors,condenser and a distributor cap to change.
No Forums such as this to post and ask questions, no internet, no cell phones but we did have rotary dial phones and 45 RPM record players that played vinyl records
An AM Radio with five push buttons and a heater were options.
Good luck

 

I love those old analog systems now, certainly didn't back when I had to use them though.

 

Took the car out for a test run this morning, no issues so I took it onto the highway and had a bit of fun with another g35 coupe that I passed for a little, took the car back home and had no smoke and not even a drop of oil, man I missed having fun with this car. Thanks for the help!

 

Glad everything worked out well
Lesson learned
No matter what you intend to do for the first time, Google it and all vehicles most likely have a FSM on line to assist you or someone has already posted a YouTube Video on how to do it