jr_scott25

I own a 1998 Porsche boxster, long story short I replaced the valve cover sealant by myself and now one of the plugs that go in at the end of the camshaft keeps popping out every time I start my car and oil spills out everywhere! This problem is kicking my butt and the local mechanic shops. They say they have NEVER seen anything like it. I have even searched the forums and found nothing! Someone please help!

Macster

As I like to say the last thing touched is first thing suspect, so my WAG is when you replaced the valve cover aka camshaft cover that the sealant failed to properly seal the very high oil pressure areas.

The sealant needs to be around the outer edges of the cover to seal the oil from leaking out but there are beads of sealant that must be applied on surfaces where the bearing halves (half in the head and half in the cover) join. These areas are around holes that feed high pressure oil to the bearings.

If these areas are not sealed properly the engine has an internal high pressure oil leak. The volume of oil and under pressure can overwhelm the oil scavage pump which is located at probably the other end of the head and well, the plugs as the end of the cover pop out.

(Another problem is that oil scavage pumps can be mixed up and they do not scavage properly. If these have been out and then back in the engine you need to double check they are installed correctly.)

If I'm right then you should be thankful. These plugs popping out are an early warning sign that something is amiss in the lubrication system and had you run the engine much the cam bearings both the camshaft bearing journals proper and the camshaft bearings in the head/cover could have been damaged from insufficient oil and oil pressure.

Unless you come up with another explanation for what you are experiencing I think you are faced with removing the cover, or covers, and resealing the covers.

This is not to say you need to slather more sealant on, that more is better. Not at all. Easy does it. (IIRC there is a bead size/diameter call out in one of the manual references.)

The surfaces to be sealed must be clean.

The right sealant must be used. It must be applied in a bead of the proper size. It must be applied at all the right places.

Extreme care must be used to ensure when the camshaft cover is installed in no way is the bead compromised, smeared or wiped away, etc.

Then the cover must be tightened down properly so that the bead spreads out and a proper seal is created.

Also, IIRC the camshaft cover bolts should not be reused.

Sincerely,

Macster.

jr_scott25

Thank you very much for your response! Everything you said made A LOT of sense. Initially I asked the dealership if improperly installing the scavenge pump could lead to that problem ( because I DID remove it and am not 100% sure it is correctly installed. ) and they said that that could not be it. And I had no idea about the sealant being applied to those other areas in the cam housing so I would not be surprised if that were the problem either. Anyways, I found the proper installation position for the scavenge pump on alldata so I will be double checking my work this weekend and posting my results.Thank you very much.