oil seep

Hi to anybody that has the answer to my question.

Noticed a little smoke coming from the exaust manifold on drivers' side and found an oil seep on the bottom of the valve cover (bottom) so went to service manual and found the section on valve cover removal and installation.
Torque figure given for tight 70-106 ft.lbs.
My bolts gave at 20 ft.lbs and I gave all of them, (yes starting alternatly from the middle top left) about one half to 3/4 rotation to snug the cover down. At this point I found the wrench registering about 20 -22 ft. lbs..
What is going on???????
I will not go to the 70 ft.lbs. indicated, due to the fact that just the feel was wrong.

Did I do something that I shouldn't have done, and how difficult is it to change the gaskets?

Anybody with ideas, please respond.
Thanks!!

Tim Van Nattan
'94 Mark VIII
Santa Fe/Saddle
"Moffie"

RE: oil seep

Tim,

Sounds to me like you used your common sense. If tightening, stops the seep I wouldn't worry about changing them.

RE: oil seep

Thanks Lee, I'll keep you posted.

Tim Van Nattan
'94 Mark VIII
Santa Fe/Saddle
"Moffie"

RE: oil seep

Are you saying that the book indicated to torque the VALVE Covers to 75-100ft lbs??? IF so you were reading hte wrong thing for sure.. The valve cover bolts are only supposed to be torqued to 15-20 ft/lbs or so. THat is off the top of my head. IF you went any tighter than that with them you would snap all of them in half at about 35lft/lbs or less.

Changing the passengers side gasket is not all that hard, but the drivers side is a little more intense. WOuld take an average mechanic 3 hours or so.

RE: oil seep

Thank you Pony, that was my feeling also, so I didn't go over 21-22ft.lbs.. I must go back and re-read that section in the manual. Went to dinner tonight and the car got plenty warm as we are already at 98degrees ambient, and there were no drips, no runs, no smells, I guess we can declare victory at this point.
Thank you both for the input.
Wow Pony, you sure have a pretty car.
My Pony happens to be a '65Mustang GT w/Hi-Po 289, in Poppy Red with Parchment Vinyl Top and Pony interior.

Tim Van Nattan
'94 Mark VIII
Santa Fe/Saddle
"Moffie"

RE: oil seep

My old Pony used to be a 68 fastback, 428CJ, restored it myself in high school, drove it a little in college, then sold it and bought my Pearl Mark VIII. Here is a pic of it

http://www.markviii.org/~ponyfreak/68mustang/68mustang 002.jpg

If you turn to page 03-01-159 in your manual, you will see 3/4 down the page in the first column, that it does in fact say 71-106, but right underneath it is says lb Inch.

Everything else in that column is in lb/ft, besides those with the extra notation beneath them. I could see how it could have been overlooked. I have done the same thing but caught myself as well when I thought about the torque and the size of the bolts.
Common sence is not so common, luckily you caught yourself or you would have had a whole bunch of studs in your head. Glad to hear tightening ttem did jsut hte trick!!