May 15, 2005
I noticed my valve covers were loose, again. Or rather, the "screw bolts" Toyota used to hold them down were loose. They're Philips head bolts made out of a soft-ish metal, so it's nearly impossible to torque them down at all. Thus they come loose. my center valley filled up with oil again, and it appears oil's been leaking out the sides as well.
So I bought a gasket, took off the covers, replaced it, AND used new SS bolts with a hex head and a star washer to make sure they don't budge. Since i was digging around there anyway, I yanked the spark plugs to check them out. They have what appears to my untrained eye lots of carbon deposits and a good coating of oil, but that likely happened when pulling them out of the oil soaked center valley. The gaps are all in the range of 0.040", +/- 0.002". They are supposed to be 0.032". Since they are platinum plugs, you aren't supposed to gap them, so I bought some new ones. Cheap enough.
But now the brand-new ones are factory gapped to 0.041" or so. WTF? Time to do some research.