brucepick

The seals on underside of valve cover at top of spark plug tube. They are all hard as rock, don't want to come off. Any suggestions? I've put 65K on the car but total is 216K, these could be original.

I pretty well destroyed the #1 seal but there's still the core rubber ring bonded against the flat aluminum surface. Is there something I can soak the cover in that will dissolve the hardened rubber?

RACEPAK

Just use a large flat screwdriver and lever them outside,

NOFX

Flatheads can damage the valve cover in my experience. I use needlenose pliers, grab the seal and twist.

There's a metal coil inside the seal. Don't worry about damaging that. It's just part of the seal and is inside the replacement seal as well.

brucepick

Not to be obtuse, but...
Grab ring from going down from above? (OK, the whole valve cover is upside down but you know what I mean.) At the notch in the valve cover?


A local friend said to hit edgewise on the ring using screwdriver blade or chisel, with hammer. To make the circle cave in. The rubber ring has the coil spring inside but also has a metal ring embedded.

NOFX

Valve cover upside down. Grab the ring from above. Twist, lift, peel away the ring from the metal. It should come off in one piece. Brittle ones might come off in multiple chunks.

We remove the seals every time we paint a valve cover here.

Deetz

i've used pliers or needle nose myself on the tough ones, trust me, they will come out. As with anything, take care in not damaging the underside of the cover, it's not too hard

NOFX

Yeah, I don't like to pry against the cover because it damages pretty easily.