Anybody see this before. The engine was majored 5 years ago and I fixed another one a year or so ago.

Install error I would suspect. Maybe something slippery was used on the gasket and it oozed the gasket into the cover.

Install error I would suspect.

Thanks, I was kind of thinking the same. And this was a reputable shop. I majored it myself back in 1995 and think I did a better job.

Yep had the same deal on 3 cylinders after 50 hours. It is Superior gaskets material.
I put no sealant on them you can see they shrink so hard they rip the screw holes right out!

Took them all off and replaced with silicone gaskets. Much happier now!

Thanks Tango. The picture is of number two cylinder and I had a feeling number four had a problem too. Popped it off and sure enough the top corner was pulled in also.

The gaskets were put on wrong. They are not symmetrical. Make sure they are not flipped over the wrong way.

They look similar to mine I'm fixing right now.

Oh, and I'm putting silicone on as replacements. 5 of mine were like this and leaking.

I have some pinkish colored gaskets that I've had laying around for years that I just installed. Painted some of that black sticky gasket sealer on the cover side and just put it back together. The one I did a year ago or more is still holding. Evidently the orange gaskets are junk. You'd really have to work at it to get them backwards.

Yep, no way to get them backwards.

I think the narrow mating surface has something to do with the slipping inward.
Same gasket material in other locations seems to do fine.
Although the other locations have bolts that are much tighter than the valve cover screws.

180Marty wrote:Anybody see this before. The engine was majored 5 years ago and I fixed another one a year or so ago.

I think that was caused by running ethanolized gas!
(sorry Marty, I couldn't resist! A guy I used to know always blamed every airplane accident on the use of car gas-- even VFR-into-IMC CFIT crashes!)