# New Valve Cover leaking



## mcgee1756 (Nov 2, 2016)

Hi All, new to this forum and new to attempting to be a mechanic. I'll try to make this long story short. I've got a 2003 Nissan Altima 3.5 with 170K miles. The engine was mis-firing so I took it to O'Reily to read the computer codes and thus the adventure begins. It gave a multiple cylinder misfire code. So based on this I set out to do the spark plugs and ignition coils - which is no small task since you have to take off the intake manifold. On the back spark plugs I found one of the spark plug wells drench in oil - which I found to be a bad valve cover. Since I had come this far I decided to try to tackle this as well. I ordered one off of Amazon. While putting on the new valve cover I broke two valve cover bolts(don't ask). I decided to at least put it all back together and go with 8/10 valve cover bolts just to see if I fixed the original problem. I cleared the check engine light and the car drove amazing. It was however leaking oil - which I figured might happen since I was missing two bolts. It seemed like it was leaking from the corner and not in the middle where the bolts were missing. It's hard to tell since everything is packed in tight you can't get a clear view of it.

I then decided to take it all apart again and re-set the valve cover and gasket, drilled out the two broken bolts all the way thru and put a bolt and nut on these. I was very careful to only put 7 foot lbs of torque on the bolts this time!

I put it all back together, fired it up for a test drive and it ran perfect. The only problem is I pulled it into the garage and realized it's leaking oil worse than before. Am I missing a trick to putting on the valve cover and gasket? I am worried I may have damaged the smooth surface of the block when I was scraping off the old RTV silicon. It doesn't seem like this would cause it to leak the amount of oil that's appears to be coming out. 

Does anyone know how much an engine replacement is and if it's worth it? Thinking worst case scenario...

thanks for any advice


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