I'm in the process of replacing the valve cover gaskets and the air injection fittings on the passenger side exhaust manifold are really hard to break loose. The drivers side broke loose where it threads into the manifold, its hard to get a wrench on the passenger side. I'm soaking the threads with some wd40and going to get a 1 inch kinda short wrench if I can find one. Any ideas or suggestions ? So far I'm looking at 5 hours for valve cover gasket replacement.

 

Get a real penetrating oil. WD 40 has it's uses but breaking free rusted bolts is not one of them. Use PB Blaster. Excellent stuff.

 

pb works great!

 

Get a line wrench (aka flare nut wrench) on there if you can, preferably a 6-point wrench. Anything else will just round the corners off the hex, and then you'll have a real mess.

 

I appreciate your taking the time to reply, thanks. I will pick up the recomended PB blaster. I live in the Phoenix area and there just is not a lot of corrison on any of the fittings, but the combo of hard to get a wrench on and not budging had me trying to do something. I'm off this morning to find a better wrench, 1 inch line wrench and a 1 inch open end. Can ya tell I'm more used to working on older big/small blocks ? Valve covers should be a 1-2 hour job at most. I must really be slowing down.

 

You might even have to heat the exhaust manifold with a propanr torch to get it loose. The thousands of heating and cooling cycles tend to make getting these apart a project in itself. Try the PB blaster first, using the right wrench then when you've tried everything, heat it up some....

 

Another really good product is called Tri-Flow. Its like Pb, but i believe it works even better. I have used it for years getting rusted stuff apart here in Iowa. Also, heating up the manifold definately helps alot. Just remember, heat manifold around the fitting, not the fitting itself.

 

In way of an update, the Pb blaster and 1" wrench did the trick and I moved the fittings out of the way and got at the valve covers. I was reading in another thread about most oil leaks being caused by malfunctioning PCV system. I noticed on my passenger side valve cover there was a 45 degree plastic elbow, no PCV between the throttle body and the valve cover. Isn't that where the PCV valve should be, not just a 45 degree fitting into the valve cover ?

 

No. The PCV valve is on the drivers side of the intake manifold, in the center. Courtesy of Shoebox:

http://shbox.com/1/pcv.jpg

The PCV system is "closed". The line from the throttle body to the passenger valve cover supplies air that has been included in the MAF sensor, and that air is pulled into the valve cover by the crankcase vacuum created by the PCV valve pulling crankcase vapor out of the crankcase though a hole in the bottom of the intake manifold, and passages up to the valve. Vacuum to the PCV valve starts at a port under the throttle body, and there is a metal tube and hose that connects it to the valve.

http://shbox.com/1/pcv_pipe.jpg