You should be okay with the black RTV, derf. I have both the black and gray and most likely would have used the black too. But, I'm old school and would have run a bead around the entire cover, waited a few minutes for it to get tacky and then put the gasket on it. I never put any type of sealer on a head.Is that what you're supposed to do on the Saturn?

 

The bead does go on the cover, than the gasket. The ONLY place you put rtv to the actual head is at the t joints. Nowhere else. On the same page, old schooler

 

OK,

I finally got over the mental block associating with re replacing the cam cover gasket.

I was speechless when I removed the cover bolts.
What HE did:

1) the gasket, which press fits into a groove in the cover, fell out of the groove and stayed with the head.
2) the gasket had either been stretched on install or was too big from the start. Mechanic's answer: CUT IT but leave a gap between the cut ends. Tell no one.
3) OLD RTV (2 layers) not cleaned off at T Joints, the only place you apply it. Answer: Add a third rtv layer blob, in the wrong direction so it seals nothing at all but holds the end of the gasket way up off the head.
4) the dude added rtv to the two rounded turns at the far side of the head. Reason? Beats me. Nothing meeting nothing. Maybe he's into symmetry. Note that there was no RTV from previous jobs as there were at the other end.
5) result of 3 + 4 made it physically impossible to seal the cover to the head, as both ends were being jacked up by RTV on the head side. He probably tightened up to spec, then started it. THAT's when the oil got all over my block.
6) overtorqued the bolts as far as he could without shearing them off in order to get as much of a seal as he could and called it done..

---------------------

What I did
0) photographed the disaster to the nth degree
a) meticulously cleaned the edge of the head, removing all traces of RTV (brake cleaner)
a2) cleaned the oil out of the seating landings at the top of the spark plug tubes
b) meticulously cleaned cam cover gasket, especially the mating surface (brake cleaner)
b2) installed cover gasket
b3) installed plug well gasket strip on head
c) let everything dry
d) replaced the grommets
e) put a thin smear of black rtv across the t joints front to back, let it skin up for 10 min
f) put the cover back on straight from above so everything landed and seated properly the first time
g) followed the Chilton book for tightening order of bolts. made 4 gradual passes to final toque of 89 in lbs.4
h) let sit 24 hours.

Started up, no leaks
Drove around town, no leaks
Drove on highway, no leaks
Parked in garage. no leaks

Done.

Thanks for the support, folks. I thought there was more magic to this job than there was.
There just ain't.

[/endUnneccesaryNightmare]

 

Glad to hear you had a successful repair, derf. Valve cover gaskets have never been an intimidating job for me except on a FWD V-6 Mopar van!! That rear one is a bear. LOL

 

People on this and other satty sites always seemed to describe the gasket fix as involving black magic or some special ritual.

As it turns out, the s cars from 94 and earlier do NOT have a slot in the cover for a pre Fab gasket. You make one with rtv. I had somehow gotten it into my head that I needed to lay a perimeter bead of rtv, which, because I have bad hand tremors, I kept avoiding the job.

I am yet to determine a diplomatic way to tell the owner of the shop that whomever worked on my car possesses neither intelligence, motivation, nor logical problem solving skills, and if faced with something unfamiliar to him, is too lazy to look it up in alldata or either of the 2 Chilton manuals I left on the front passenger seat w pages marked for torque specs.

I know the owner cannot afford to be down a mechanic, but this subpar level of work is something he needs to know about. Doubt it is just my ride being affected. A lot of retired folks use his shop because he's honest and reasonably priced. They won't know the guy is taking shortcuts that don't work, then covering them up.

Rant over. Here's a pic of the engine bay after a good degreasing.....

 

Looks awesome! As for telling the owner of the shop about his sub-par employee, you just need to be straight up honest with him. I'd rather own a busy shop with a wait time than one that "fixes" everything in a days time. Better to be short handed and reputable than too many employees and not enough business to keep them busy. Word of mouth will either increase your business or put you out. I can't imagine being put out of business because of one lazy, slothful employee. Tell the guy, the first chance you get. Let him know it's no disrespect to him or his business, just the one employee. Hopefully, you documented all of that and can show him. what was done wrong. That will help him tremendously.