I recently bought a 99 Accord with 86000 miles on it. The interior and exterior of the car are in mint condition, although I think the owner was sloppy on the oil changes. When I purchased it the engine had about a 2 quarts of oil in it and was about 5000 miles over the oil change mileage on the sticker. The car has some slow oil seepage and I wanted to pull the valve covers and check and see if the car had any sludge build up. My only concern was if I would have to replace the gasket on the cover or not. Has anyone removed their valve cover before, did they need to replace their gasket, how hard was it?

 

since i can only guess on the engine size ,,, and you did say valve COVERS I have to assume that it is a v6 ,, it is not a very easy or fast job to remove the valve covers .. why not remove the oil filler cap, get a flash lite and look inside the cover
if on the other hand was a 4 cyl piece of cake to remove cover,, And yes anytime you remove valve cover i would advice to install a new gasket


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It is a 4cyl. So it is alot easier with the 4cyl and you need to replace the gasket? Is there any easier way to check for sludge buildup.

 

yes replace gasket once you remove the valve cover and i would replace the upper spark plug seals as well.........If you do not want to remove the valve cover,, remove the oil filler cap , get a flashlite and look inside the cover ,, you wont be able to see if there is sludge as good as with the cover off ,, but you should get an idea

 

Thanks for the info. I will check under the oil filler cap this weekend to see if I can see anything. I have another question, there seems to be a small oil leak coming from the engine. Is there any place that commonly leaks on Accords or is obvious (it isn't the oil filter or drain bolt). I am going to try and put it up on the rack this weekend to try and find it.