im changing valve cover gasket on my 4.0. how in the world do you get those heat hardened grommets out of the cover? and does anyone know where to get replacemants.im thinking the help section at local parts house.i just replaced the gasket maybe 2 or 3 years ago. whats the key to stopping the leakage? at 40 bucks a pop they ought to last longer.

 

I got my replacements at Morris4X4 (or 4WD) but they have them at O'Reilly for a little more, without shipping.

Without removing valve cover, I got the front one out nibbling around it with a pair of small diagonal cutters. Finally got enough of it off to get the breather out and spent a while making sure I got all the hard plastic bits out of the head where they fell in and stuck to the oil on whatever is directly under that hole. Never again. The back one is staying right where it is until I am required to take the valve cover off.

With the valve cover off, a pair of side cutters, any sort of pliers action cutters, should work.

 

Slip a Buck knife under the edge and cut around it until you can pull the fitting out. Then grab it with needle-nosed Visegrips and pull the rest of it out.

 

these puppies need a dremel or hacksaw.there not pliable at all. i dont think a knife will cut it.i even thought about torching them, after pulling cover.thanks for ideas though.

 

I think a Schrade, or Camilus, or any decent knife would do the job. I don't see any reason it has to be that particular brand of knife.


I used a pair of side-cutters. Worked fine. Heat will probably help.

 

I'm just saying a Buck knife because that's what I have and any good quality heavy knife would be the same.

A bit of humor. You know Buck always says you can pierce a coin with their knives? Well, yeah you can, but it'll completely destroy the cutting edge! My brother did it and he spent many hours getting it back into shape! It probably would have been better if he'd used a solid silver quarter. Did you know most of the Buck knives were made at Camillus Cutlery here in NY? I had a hand in repairing a mold for the handles after they stopped using antler horn and went to plastic for the smaller folding knives.

 

Jaws of life should handle it.

 

Sixpack, you've been working on Cherokees too long!

 

If the jaws of life don't work, you can set the valve cover up in a vertical mill and remove the fittings with an endmill. Suggest this be done outside of the vehicle, and take care to have a rigid setup without warping the cover.

 

I would say screw it and get a new aluminum cover online for like $90. The steel ones tend to warp over time, so when you swap the gasket you will only be delaying the inevitable, which is it will continue to leak. JMO

 

With only 130K miles on my 2000 XJ, my valve cover was leaking very badly and when I went to remove the cover, the bolts were just finger tight! As far as I could tell, the cover had never been removed since it was assembled at the factory. I replaced the gasket with a Victor-Reinz neoprene reusable one just as I had done on my 2000 WJ, and neither one has started leaking since. The WJ has gone thru a head change and still retains that gasket!

 

sorry guys been busy....i removed cover ,placed on my bench and took a hacksaw and cut the the elbows off flush with grommet. then i. took a dremel and cut around the perimeter of grommet about a 1/4 inch apart. then took pliers and broke off each section.then i had to take my screwdriver and break up remaining plastic elbow still in grommet. it was very brittle and broke up easily.at this point remaing grommet just fell through the hole which i retrieved with needle noses.i bought my new grommets and elbows at oriellys.it was actually the only grommets they had.cant remember part number but it says for chrysler. you can tell by just looking at them.let me tell you them steel hardened petrified old grommets was some hard 'shirt'. after all this i flushed out and used compressed air to remove any left over material.there may be easier ways but thats what i did.BTW, i didnt know these covers warped.mines only been off twice in 23 years.if it leaks again im trashing for aluminum as 2000 suggested.