Toyota tarago previa 2004 leaking oil - 2004 Toyota Previa

SOURCE: 1992 Toyota Previa van,Oil dripping onto exhaust manifold, replace head gasket? need a free manual!

The toyota previa uses a formed silicone gasket for the valve cover and the cover is held in place by metric shoulder bolts ( 10mm). The valve gasket leaks because you can't get enough preload on the bolts to re-seat the old gasket when it gets old and shrinks. The shoulder bolts only allow you to tighten the gasket enough to seat the shoulder on the bolt. If you continue to torque down the suspected bolts, you will snap the bolt off ( don't ask me how I know this ). You can either 1.)replace the old gasket with a new one or 2.) remove the existing bolts around the leak area and put in new metric bolts that do not have a shoulder. You may want to put in a small sleeve into the existing bolt hole but shorter than the thickness of the valve cover to account for the smaller diameter bolt. You can now torque down the bolt and get enough preload to seal the valve cover without removing the old gasket. Make sure you use a torque wrench ( in-lbs) or be very careful not to snap these small valve cover bolts.