On my 1996 bronco with 5.0 how bad is it to change the valve cover gaskets. They are leaking oil pretty good. I need to add oil at least once a week. I know the intake has to come off, so what do ya'll think is my best option. My bronco is my everyday vehicle and I can't be without it for several week days.

Thanks for all your help and comments!

 

I havent actually done this job but I think only upper plenum comes off to remove valve covers. Seems like there are only 6 bolts to remove to do it. Just take your time and it should be fairly straightforward job.

 

Passenger side will be more tedious just because of the mounds of crap in your way. Upper intake plenum, A/C bulkhead, Thermactor/smog plumbing all run down that side of the engine. PCV valve plumbing runs from the grommet in the valve cover up the back of the upper plenum and is all but impossible to deal with except by "feel". Other than being tedious and time-consuming the project isn't all that difficult.

The upper plenum has five hex-head bolts and ONE T45 or T50 (can't remember off the top of my head) Torx head bolt at the mid-point on the passenger side that you have to wiggle a driver down into between the gap between the forward and aft sets of plenum runners. Once loosened, you have to take care to either not drop it, drop it so it falls somewhere you can dig it out once the upper plenum is removed, OR lift the entire plenum with the bolt hanging in it.

 

I think the torx bolt is 45 or maybe 40. But yeah mainly what greystreak said.

It's actually pretty easy, I just did it. You should take out the brake booster vacuum and the pcv vacuum hose, and unplug the vacuum tree too. You'll have to take the throttle cable and cruise cables out of the throttle body but those just pop right off.

Once that is done and the six bolts are out of the upper intake, it will pull right off. Oh, you'll need to unplug the DPFE, IAC, and TPS sensors first on the throttle body and upper intake.

Once the upper intake is off, you want to unplug the rest of the connections on the front of the two wiring harnesses that are bolted on the inner side of the valve covers so you cam pull them out of the way.

All the plugs are different so you don't need to worry about which plug goes where because they only fit in one place.

Once that stuff is out of the way, you can take the covers out! You may want to unbolt the ignition coil/secondary air sensor bracket to pull it up and out of the way of the drivers side valve cover too.

Once I get home from work in a few hours, I can send you some pictures of when I was doing mine to show you better if you need more help.

 

cover the open lower intake ports with duct tape so nothing falls into the motor

 

Alright, here are some pictures of what it will look like to get the valve covers off:

This it what it will look like when you get the air tube out of the way:


You can take throttle body off if you want, or leave it on the upper intake. I took it off:


As you can see, you will need to take the black cover off to unhook the throttle cable. The throttle body has 4 bolts to it so it's easy to take off. Make sure to unplug the IAC sensor, the DPFE sensor (on the upper intake) and the TPS sensor (on the lower intake.) The two black hoses handing directly in front on the upper intake connect to the DPFE sensor, you can leave them there. I have the distributor out here. You do NOT need to take it out, you should have enough room to take the covers off even with the spark wires plugged in. I took it out because I was doing quite a bit more work.

Here is a picture of the secondary air control sensors, and part of the ignition coil. These are all part of one bracket that is bolted on by two studs that go into the lower intake. You can unbolt the two studs and unplug the two sensors/coil to take this off. There are electrical connectors for each of the three sensors on here, and vacuum plugs to all three also. There is also two plugs for the ignition coil and then the spark wire to the coil.


You might be able to get away leaving this on, but it's really not too bad to take off.

Here is a picture with the upper intake and the ignition coil/sensors bracket off:


You can see the wiring harness against the valve covers on the inside along the lower intake. They are held on by two studs on the ends of the valve covers. When you unplug all the connections from the front of each harness, then you can unbolt the studs and pull the wires back to get better room to take off the valve covers:


This is after I did some work. The distributor is out along with the brackets on the front of the heads but you don't have to do any of that. Anyways, you can see I tapped the wiring harnesses out of the way to I could pull the covers out. You can get some good rubber valve cover gaskets and bolt them right in. I had no issues putting them on, just make sure the cylinder heads gasket surface is clean, with a straight edge razor, along with the valve covers. I used a wire wheel on a drill to clean the valve covers edge, then painted them as you can see.

It looks like a lot of work, but really it is pretty easy. If your covers are leaking a quart a week this is a good thing to do! I would check to make sure your valve covers gasket surfaces are flat too. If they are not, you may be able to straighten them out, but if not, you should be able to pick some up fairly cheap on Craigslist or even an auto parts store.

 

Thanks for all of ya'lls input and suggestions!! Bubba should I send you my address and let you come help!! Come on down to LA (lower Alabama) and take over!! Ha!
One more question, while I'm putting on these gaskets and suggestions for a few little power upgrades I can do?? My bronco is bone stock expect for headers. Will do plugs and wires but any other suggestions?

Thanks Again!!

 

Haha I've been to Alabama once for Field Training... it wasn't too fun... and when its 80 degrees there and dark, you're still sweating.... It may have been nice if I was free to go around in Alabama but it's still too humid.

80 here is pretty nice, so I don't know if I want to go back anytime soon!

When you're in there, there isn't a TON you can do for more power without making a substantial amount more work or money (replacing heads and head gaskets along with intake gaskets.)

However, I have heard from Conaski on the forums here that switching your rocker arm ration to 1.7 is a nice noticeable boost. The stock rocker arm ration is 1.6, so 1.7 give a little bigger lift which helps the flow on the heads of these trucks. However, a set of nice rockers will be 150-300 dollars. Rockers will just bolt on and off, so they are pretty easy to change. However (again) if you change your rocker arms, you will want to make sure to check your pushrod length. The pushrods need to make the rocker arms line up evenly and straight across the springs on the cylinder head.

To check pushrod length, you can

1) take a black marker and color in the top of the spring where the rocker arm would rest

2) place the pushrod into place

3) bolt on the rocker arm

4) turn the crank by hand (with a breaker bar or something and batter cable unplugged) one full revolution

5) take the rocker arm off and view the mark on the top of the spring

If the mark is even on the center of the spring, your pushrod length is good and you can keep the same ones, if the mark is high on the spring, you need taller pushrods. If it is low, you need shorter pushrods.

When I swapped my cylinder heads, I used my stock length pushrods and was okay. You might be okay with just bolting on 1.7 rocker arms and not needing new pushrods, but it's good to check while you're there just in case. A set of pushrods will probably cost you about 100 dollars.

So you might be looking at 200-400 dollars to swap to 1.7 rockers.

Otherwise there isn't much you can do besides swap cylinder heads or add a cam, but swapping heads involves taking the old ones out and a cam involves taking the timing chain off.

Maybe get a K&N intake kit! I have one and it gave me about 1-2mpg boost! Lots of people don't like them because they are about 250 and honestly don't do too much, but I've had good luck with it. You can make you own intake that performs the same as the K&N kit for probably like 30 dollars, but I like the clean look of a professional kit.

Enough rambling for me though, let me know if you run into trouble with the valve cover swap!