Has anyone ever taken off the valve covers without taking off the intake manifold on a S4? I don't know if it is possible. thanks

 

Yup.

 

Yes, it's certainly possible.

Driver's side is pretty straightforward, the passenger side is somewhat more involved due to the fuel inlet line, and the engine lift bracket.

 

Yes. They are close to each other but the covers will come off without the intake removal. But, ...and there's always a 'but', the oil vent hoses are typically crispy/rotten/oil-soaked/etc., and removing the covers involves removing those hoses and moving them out of the way for cam cover removal. So the question of getting the covers off first is clearly yes. Will you need to pull the intake to replace all the vapor hoses? Typically, yes.

 

where does the front of the engine leak at? are they the two black circle shaped seals for the camshafts?

 

I circled the part of the engine that tends to leak.

 

There are a few 'popular' places. The cam seals are options, and should probably be replaced with a timing belt service. The plugs on the other non-drive cams should be pinned on your 1989, so aren't generally a problem. The other option is the oil filler neck, and those afrorementions oil vent hoses. Inside the timing covers there's the oil pump, with a shaft seal and o-ring, and the front seal on the crankshaft. Continuing lower you get to the oil sump with gasket, and the o-ring where the dipstick tube penetrates. Other oil leaks include the power steering system, the oil pressure sender, and the auto trans cooling hoses that run to the coolers in the radiator and top of the AC condenser area.

 

I don't care who ya are, that's funny right there.

 

LMAO!

 

Hockey puck seals could leak, crankshaft seal could leak, oil pump o-ring and gasket may cause weeping. Tensioner could leak. I'm probably missing some other stuff but that's some major ones I think.

Valve covers you'd get leaking from the sides or inside the spark plug hole.

 

Now that got me laughing!

Regards

Fred

 

ROTFLMFAO...

 

good one speedtoys !

 

5 minutes later I came back to this because I was still laughing...

 

Very funny and confirmation of what I'm seeing on my engine. :-)