In my attempts to remove the tube (PCV to air-cleaner) sticking out at the back of the valve cover I was a bit rough and actually broke it. Since I wanted to take it out without hard bits of plastic falling in between the rockers etc. I decided to remove the whole cover so that I could replace it. Since I had never opened up an engine like this, the seemed a bit daunting. But hey, I gotta start some where :-)
The screws came out easy but the cover was quite stuck to the cork gasket. Eventually I managed to get it off but most of the gasket was still stuck to the engine. Great...
After screwing around with a stanley knife to scrape the cork off a friend told me about a special tool used to scrape off the remaining bits of the gasket. It's actually called a gasket remover. Wow...
So the next day I came back with the gasket remover and within 30 minutes I had cleaned all the remaining bits of gasket off the engine. I made very sure that no bits of cork fell in to the engine.
I also cleaned the valve cover and ripped out the old hose connector.
And replaced it with a new one.
Then I had to put in a new gasket and attach the cover again, too. Because everything was falling off (the gasket is really floppy) I put bits of metal wire in the screw holes to keep the gasket in place.
The wires also kept the cover in place. I then removed one piece of wire at a time, replacing it with a screw. Eventually I got the whole cover firmly attached again.
This was a nice little job and the first time I saw some of the inside of the engine. Nice!
