it is the biggest pain to get the breather out.... i used a flat head screw driver and just went at it! i got it out with minimal damage =] and the new one was pretty easy to put in

 

good luck man! its not to hard just make sure everything is torqued down right! its like 11 or 20 INCH pounds i believe and then retorque it at 50 and 200 mile marker

 

You can pull the first breather and put a filter on it, I WOULD NOT pull the second one.
The first one is for air to come in, the one in the back pulls the air out, along with all the nasty hydrocarbon vapors to be burned.
If the back one is pulling oil into the intake, take the hose off and clean it out real good, use a screwdriver in the grommet hole to get the carbon out.

 

the front is actually the one leaking the back one looks beautiful so to speak

 

goldenlandscaping,

I changed the valve cover on my 94 XJ 4.0L this past weekend. Took about 2 hours start to finish - taking my time. I pulled off the hose from the thermo housing (as Tural mentioned), but I also removed the accelerator cable bracket (just to the right of the breather as seen in your picture) to give myself plenty of room. The bracket has 3 bolts and the 3 cables just unclip from the bracket mechanism.

The old gasket was leaking pretty badly, some of the valve cover bolts were removable by hand. The old gasket looked like shrivelled paper. I replaced it with a FEL-PRO rubber gasket (much much better quality). Get yourself an inch-lb torque wrench and only tighten the valve cover bolts to 55 inch-lbs, starting from the center and working your way out.

It's not that difficult, you can do it.

 

Thanks all for your help any good suggestions of colors to paint the valve cover and i know i need high temp paint also would it hurt to paint my alternator and distributor??

 

my breather was ****. i switch to a cone air filter though and put a breather filter on and now its saturated with all that nasty. i know it should be sucking in air but i just kinda gave up.

 

If the PCV or CCV valve (which ever one you have) is working it should not affect vacuum. However do not plug the hose it has to allow air to circulate in the engine or you will build up too much pressure and cause all kinds of oil leaks!

 

mine leaks oil onto the air filter

 

Order a new front vacuum assembly from rockauto. Its only $15 and it replaces other vacuum lines as well. If something is leaking oil its time to replace. Love your baby and waste all your money on her.

 

X2

 

Thank you elime!!

 

The little red can next to the breather is a catch can. It hooks up to where the pcv was and the just drain it every so often.

 

Mine does the same, even with a new breather and groomet