Hey Guys,

While taking care of replacing my battery I noticed my passenger side valve cover is really grimy. I cant tell if it is oil and dirt or fuel and dirt, etc. The thing is that this is the only grimy area. The drivers side is clean although a little dusty since I have a dirt driveway. I looked all over around the headers around the intake and dont see any leaks???? Could this be coming from the oil fill or dipstick? There is no grime on the underside of the hood either so it is not something that is spewing. I hope its not the intake as that was recently resealed.( about 8 months ago) Any Ideas on where to start or how to isolate it?

Shawn

 

If there's oil on top of the valve cover, it's probably your oil cap or the o-ring for the oil cap stem. The stem thing just screws out. I cleaned mine off really well with some Brakleen (brake/carb cleaner) and wiped it off, put it back in, and it didn't leak oil anymore. Hope this helps.

JR

 

Cool I ll try that. Is this common? Just curious.

Later
Shawn

 

I am having the same problem. At first I put some RTV around the oil fill stem base and the PCV grommet to see if that was it, but after a few days there was a light film of oil again. As soon as it warms up around here (its 26 degrees now ) I am going to pull the valve cover and see whats up.

 

No need to pull the valve cover. Take off your oil cap, then remove the stem the oil cap screws into. You can take it off without removing the valve cover. Clean everything up with brake cleaner and a clean rag, including the little circle where you screw the stem into. All should be OK.

JR