VALVE COVER REMOVAL & INSTALLATION FOR GEN. III VIPER ENGINES (Coupe, Convertible, and Ram) TIME: approx. 1 hour. DIFFICULTY: 2 COST: Less than $1. TOOLS - 3/8" drive socket wrench - 3" extension for 3/8" drive - IN/lb. torque wrench - 10mm socket - 10mm deep well socket - 6mm nut driver - 8mm nut driver - Plastic pry tool - Shop rag - Sharpie SUPPLIES - Masking tape - Scrap cardboard box VEHICLE PREP: - Vehicle should be cool (ambient air temp). - Vehicle should be in an enclosed space (the less dirt flying around, the better). -REMOVAL- This is what you'll be starting with: -OPTIONAL- Use masking tape to protect the finish on the valve covers: Not required, but it's good insurance against bonks from wrenches/sockets. You need to disconnect the CCV lines using your 8mm nut driver to loosen the hose clamps and remove their respective hoses. Pass. Side: Driver's Side: Keep a shop rag handy as there might be some funk/gunk in the hoses that can drip onto your engine. It's nasty, smelly stuff. This is the fun part: removing the spark plug wire guides. These are plastic guides mounted onto the studs of some of the valve cover bolts that have a snap-lock clip on top. Use a plastic pry tool to pop the top open: Open the clip to access the spark plug wire(s): Move the spark plug wire to the outside of the clip, then close the clip to give it added rigidity: Using your hands (NOT PLIERS!!!!), lift the wire guide off the stud: It will take a decent amount of finger strength. You want to lift 'straight' off the stud. On the Pass. side, there are 6 wire guides (5 lower; 1 upper). On the Driver's side, there are 5 wire guides (4 lower; 1 upper). They all need to come off. -OPTIONAL- If you don't want to pull the wires out of the guides, you can just pull the spark plug boots. But you'll still have to remove all the guides. DO NOT USE THE WIRES AS A PULL-TOOL FOR REMOVING THE GUIDES! YOU WILL BREAK THE GUIDES!!! Be careful with the ones closest to the firewall. They are difficult to remove because of the limited space available back there. Now onto the bolts. These are pretty easy. For removal, you can take them off in any order you desire. You can use the regular 10mm socket on those that don't have the wire guide stud, but I just used the 10mm deep socket for all of them. I did the upper bolts first: Then the lower bolts: I kept a hand on the valve cover itself in case it slipped. The tricky bolts are both on the Pass. side: - Front lower corner holds the dip stick bracket (partially seen in the pic above). - Rear lower corner holds a wire bundle bracket. As I was removing each bolt, I put them into a 'bolt guide' I made from a scrap cardboard box: It's a little jacked up, but....it kept things in order. Once the bolts are out, the valve cover can be lifted off. You may need to give it a little 'fist bump' to break the seal of the rubber gasket. Lift the valve cover off at the same angle as the cylinder heads. Be careful not to bump or bonk it into surrounding objects (A/C condenser, brake master cylinder, etc.). Keep the shop rag handy as there might be a little oil pooled in the bottom cavities of the cylinder head tops. It might drip out onto your engine block. Use the shop rag to wipe way any drips. Here is one of the valve covers removed: With both covers removed, your engine will look like this: IMPORTANT: If you're going to have the valve covers off for more than few minutes, COVER THE VALVE TRAIN!!! SaranWrap works well and is cheap/easy to find. Set the valve cover aside and do a close inspection of your valve train: Look for anything metallic or out of the ordinary. You want that area as clean as possible. Let's go back to the valve cover and inspect it. You'll notice the black rubber gasket on the valve cover: Check that it's still in one piece, has no divots, dents or cracks. If there's even the slightest mark, replace it. It's not worth chancing. Inside the valve cover you'll see a baffle bolted to the top. The baffle can be removed using an 8mm nut driver to take out the (7) mounting bolts: Once the bolts are out, lift the baffle cover straight out of the valve cover: It's a tight fit going in and coming out. Underneath the baffle is a type of foam filter: Inspect the baffle and foam filter for any metal or chunks of nastyness. Remove as needed. I'm not sure if that filter can be cleaned and re-used. I will check on that and post more info. BTW- If you're reading this on any site other than SRTConnection.com, it means that some asshat stole it from their site. Not only is that uncool, but it's also highly illegal. -INSTALLATION- Installation is pretty much the reverse of removal, with a few slight changes. Check that the foam is seated in the valve cover properly, and re-attach the baffle with the 8mm nutdriver on the (7) screws. There is no torque setting for these, but BE CAREFUL! They are threading into aluminum and can easily strip out that aluminum. Hand-tight is good. Make sure the gasket is seated properly all the way around the valve cover. Place the valve cover back onto the cylinder head and use a couple of the mounting bolts to hold it in place. Hand-thread as many bolts as you can: This prevents cross-threading or stripping of threads. Make sure you put the ones with the wire guide stud back in their original locations! Remember that the Pass. side has the dipstick tube bracket (front lower corner): .....and the wire loom bracket (rear lower corner): Both of those need to be re-attached as you're installing the bolts. For installation, the bolts need to be tightened and torqued in a specific pattern. I'll try to use ASCII to best outline the pattern: FRONT--TOP 10--6--2--3--7--12 11--9--5--1--4--8--13 FRONT--BOTTOM Torque them all to 95 INCH/lbs. (11 N-m) These bolts see a lot of vibration, so go back and double-check all of them. Wire guides can now be pushed onto the bolts with the studs. Since I had all the wires out and all the guides open, I routed my wires nice and clean. I started at the front, and maintained the wires specific location in the guide all the way to the rear: Not required, but it does clean it up a little. If you had masking tape on there to protect the finish, you can remove it now. Re-attach the lines for the CCV, on both the Pass. side.... ....and the Driver's side: You're all back together and ready to rock! ENJOY! ©2008 Kevan J. Geier ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
It was comforting to see that I was not the only one that thought the passenger side bottom rear bolt was a PITA!
Question? Are the valve cover bolts different lengths? Not sure why you would put the bolts in a guide it they are all the same. lol
Ron, I know you are powerful...but I have been notified three times about your post...I yield...whatever I did to get on your spam list...I repent!!!!
Just as a general rule of thumb, when reusing anything that has been torqueued, compressed, has threads, or wears, it's best to mate them. Like valves. If you removed them you woudn't put them back in over different cylinders. Awesome DIY again! (...see, I don't know that video could do that or could add anything to that.)
The paint on my covers is getting somewhat ratty. I started to remove them yesterday afternoon so that I can get them powder coated, and ran into the those wire guides. Those things are really on there, so I figured that there must be a trick. I guess that trick is to simply use more muscle! Thanks for the info Kevan. Somehow I knew you'd have a write-up on this!
