200K miles! The valve cover comes off!

[tinmanSC]

I'm replacing the valve cover gaskets on my 1995 Lexus SC300 with 200K miles. To my knowledge (I got the car at 120K miles) these covers have never been off before. The gaskets were hard, dry and very brittle. I got the impression that the gaskets had shrunk and receded. The bolts holding the valve covers down were not tight. I could almost able to move them with my fingers. As you can see from the pictures, oil was weeping down the side of the block. These pictures were taken with a super uber awesome camera, but much of the detail was lost when the pictures were uploaded to Photobucket.

This engine was serviced at the dealer until about 70K, then I'm not sure what or where it was serviced. I took over service at 120K when I purchased it. Since then it has had mostly Valvoline SynPower 10w30 or 5w30 at 6-8K OCI. For filters generally P1.

 

[SLCraig]

Looks great to me.
Those are great engines too from what I've read.

 

[dparm]

Yep, Supra engine. Looks good for 200k.

 

[thescreensavers]

Hey OP when uploading to photobucket, there is a little option "Customize your upload options" from their select "Best possible quality (while staying 1mb or less)"

it will stay the same resolution as when you took it off your camera.

 

[stephen9666]

I'm not trying to be critical, but these photos show almost nothing. We really need some closer shots from the side that show how clean it is below the cams.

 

[JHZR2]

Need a better idea of real color. Seems varnish yellow to me. When was the timing belt done last? Bet it was off for that.

Long live the inline engine!

 

[chubbs1]

Nice! Thanks for the pics. Looks like you've been taking good care of 'er. Synpower is good stuff.

 

[tinmanSC]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Need a better idea of real color.


Ok, try this one.

Quote:

Seems varnish yellow to me.


At 200K miles? A slight yellowing? I'll take it. Little overly critical, if you ask me. There is no removable varnish that I could detect. The color of the metal is this way, I could not remove it with my finger nail.

I will attempt to get a better picture tomorrow. This wasn't my camera and I was a novice at using such a technical camera with about a zillion buttons.
Quote:

When was the timing belt done last? Bet it was off for that.

I changed the timing belt 44K miles ago, I did not take the valve covers off. This engine had the original timing belt when I purchased it. So, unless something wonky happened during it's pre-120K life, this would be the first time. So these would be the original valve cover gaskets. And they were nasty. Should have changed them, but I didn't really know that when I did it. Oil was all over the little valley where the spark plugs are (what is that called?). They were bathing in oil

 

[Donald]

Looks very clean to me. I will still go for engines with timing chains. Did you know most engine fires are oil related (or so I read). Not fuel or electrical. I wonder if its as simple as dripping oil that gets on a hot exhaust?

 

[Falcon_LS]

Nice and clean!

Do you know what oil was used by the dealer?

 

[demarpaint]

Looks great for 200K!

 

[addyguy]

It's cool to see an inline-6 mounted longitudally in a modern car - don't see that much today!