Valve cover gaskets....94-95

ricardoa1

Registered User
Alright I think I know where my oil leak is coming from. It is the valve cover gaskets. I did some inspecting last night and saw the stains on the heads as it leaked, Both sides are bad.

Stupid me did not changed them when I was swapping out injectors.

Now for the 94 95 felpro sells two kits, a set without grommets and a set with. Do I need these grommets? And what do they do.

Dave also pointed out that 94-95 heads are casted differently and where they differ is where the heads meet the gasket and also the bolt boss surround area.
 
I just did this job using factory ford replacement gaskets and grommets. You will need to replace the grommets as well (if you don't, you're wasting your time replacing the gasket). I highly recommend Ford replacement parts for this job. And be careful taking off the valve cover, they are magnesium and are easily broken.

Jeff
 
you want grommets. Those will be the permatorque brand gaskets which are a very flexible material that resists leaks significantly. The grommets are there to prevent over tightening of the valve cover bolts, as you want a stug, but not firm press on the gaskets. I suggest blue loc-tite on the valve cover bolts to help resist vibration loosening.
 
The Fel-Pro valve cover gaskets have grommets molded in. They seem to be pretty good. When I installed mine recently, I applied a little blue RTV to both sides of the gasket to make SURE it wasn't leaking. Some loc-tite or even just thread sealer on the bolts would probably help a lot too, because you shouldn't overtighten them or the gasket could squish out.
 
Do not use loc tite on the damn bolts. The 94 valve covers are designed to tighten down firmly on the spacers preventing over crushing of the gasket while still allowing adequate torque to prevent loosening. The grommets are there to provide tension only, they do not seal anything.
 
I did the passenger side. Took me two nights. Not fun but not so hard. Hardest part was loosing washers and nuts since the AR kit does not use threaded bosses on the inlet.

I fear to do the drivers side I am not sure if the covers wil clear the return we will see this weekend.

The gaskets were felpro, looked similar to the stock ones.. The stock ones do did not seem too distorted or too flat but I guess it only takes a little to start leaking pretty bad. I bought the kit with the grommets since thats all the had a the local PepBoys. 21bux :rolleyes:

I pushed the covers up as much as possible since I have early heads with these late covers. There is an area on the upper two bolt bosses that you can see the gasket did not make a good seal. This seems to be a problem when mismatching parts.
 
So is there a difference between 89-93 gaskets and 94-95?

Last time I did valve cover gaskets (in the dark ages) mine had brass bushings and I thought they did just what Dave said....prevent overtorquing, while keeping consistant pressure around the entire gasket.
 
So is there a difference between 89-93 gaskets and 94-95?

Last time I did valve cover gaskets (in the dark ages) mine had brass bushings and I thought they did just what Dave said....prevent overtorquing, while keeping consistant pressure around the entire gasket.


Yeah there is and the heads are a little different too to accomodate the different designs, that became clear when I was changing them out. I dont have a choice but to continue mismatching them. I didnt have issues before so it works to a point I guess.
94-95
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87-93
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You know, the guy at the parts store ASSURED me that the Taurus valve cover gaskets wouldn't work on my SC. But they did ...
 
So the heads are different? Are the valve covers different?

Valve covers are very different and you needs the matching gaskets. The heads are slightly, slight enough that both covers work. But like a said before when mismatching the parts particularly using an early head and a late valve cover, there is an area around the top two bolt bosses where the gasket does not seal up perfectly.

I dont see why the Taurus gaskets wont work as long as its a 3.8l OHV engine.
 
Heads and valve covers are different. My built heads are from an early model and we had all sorts of minor leaking issues with my 94's valve covers. Went to early model covers and the leaks are gone.
 
How'd you get that to work? What gaskets did you use?


Just the regular old 94-95 blue Fel-Pro's. I have even had them on and off several times.
I think the key to getting them to work is not to take into account that they don't work ;)
 
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