Valve Cover Leak..., please help ASAP i'm stuck :( Options

[tonytutino]

so i tried to change my valve cover gasket today, everything went fine and i bolted it all back together...
about 5 hours later i go to drive to my sister's house and as i pull in i start smelling burning oil and my car smokes a little bit from under the hood. i figured that was just the little oil i spilled on my headers earlier. well i drive to the bank a little later and my oil light comes on, then my car starts smoking real bad. i end up back at her place, check my oil level and i'm at empty and there is a huge trail of oil from where i had driven off earlier.
under the hood i see tons of oil on my alternator, bits splattered on my valve cover and header and alllllllllllllllllllll over the place....did the seal just not set or what?




This post has been edited by tonytutino: Sep 25, 2007 - 11:15 PM

[Bitter]

did you pinch anything under the cover? its all tight down? the gasket is correctly in place? you cleaned the head and cover well? you used a gasket and not just silicone right?

[tonytutino]

did you pinch anything under the cover? its all tight down? the gasket is correctly in place? you cleaned the head and cover well? you used a gasket and not just silicone right?

1) nope, nothing is pinched 2) yes its nice and tight 3) there was something odd about the gasket though, like when it set inside the valve cover there seemed to be about 1/4 inch of 'excess' gasket. like if you pushed the gasket down into the valve cover it would push up in one little spot. its a felpro one from autozone FTR.
4) i used engine degreaser on the cover to clean it, as for the head... maybe thats my problem? this is my first time doing this so don't laugh, but was i supposed to put the gasket sealer on the head as well? i just put the sealer on the gasket then put the gasket back in the head and bolted it back on...