Broken valve cover bolts

[ozone]

I did quite a bit of reading on people replacing their valve covers. I torque everything I can get my torque wrench on. The book called out 33 ft-lbs, but I broke off a bolt in the head when I tried to do that. After that I decided to tighten them by feel and easily snapped another one. I have bought all new bolts, but it seems to me that 33 ft-lbs is quite a lot. It took quite a bit of effort to get the broken bits out and now I don't want to break another one.

Did anyone who changed their valve covers torque them on? If so, to what value? Did they leak afterward?

[02slera]

Torque: 8 N·m (80 kgf·cm, 69 in.·lbf)
dont torque any one bolt all the way, use several passes to uniformly tighten all of them.

[ozone]

Wow! That little.

I already did it. I know about using the pattern and drawing it down bit by bit. I wound up doing it by hand. I hope my hand is properly calibrated. Anyway, I didn't break any bolts and it is snug. Only time will tell if it leaks.

Thanks for your input though.

[ozone]

I just checked the book again and sure enough, I was looking at the 5SFE torque spec! Man, I hate it when I do that. The 1mzfe agrees with what you posted. Thanks for that.

[minig646]

Sorry to bring up an old thread, but I just broke one of my valve cover bolts and my mechanic says it isn't possible to extract it. It's gonna be $700 to replace the whole thing. This doesn't seem right to me, so how did you extract yours? Thanks for any info you can give me.

[Brandoe91]

$700 sounds steep.Not sure why it would be $700. A pair of 1mz-fe rebuilt heads only cost $300 on ebay and the vavle covers are much less.

Possible solutions
If you have a drill you can try this at your own risk. http://www.madelectrical.com/workshop/b ... olts.shtml
or
Call or Check a cylinder head or machine shop in your town, some might offer bolt extraction service

[minig646]

Thanks for the info. I followed those steps and I went through 3 drill bits but eventually I got deep enough for the extractor to catch and it came right out. Got a new bolt at the stealership and I'm good to go.

[Brandoe91]

No problem. Glad to see you got it fixed.