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helicoil and valve cover leaks


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Been slowly getting an EA82T back together. Last weekend I was putting the passenger (non-distributor) side cam and everything back on. While putting on the 4 bolts for the valve cover I stripped a couple of them. The strange part is, I couldn't even tell I was stripping them till it was to late as the bolts never even got hand tight. So either I don't know my own stregth, or the threads had already been damaged when the previous owner had rebuilt the engine.

 

So, tore everything apart and helicoil'ed all the valve cover threads, and the threads on the cam retainer (they were stripping too). I then decided to be on the safe side, I went to helicoil the same offending threads on the other side of the engine (distributor side), only to find that some one else had already done it.

 

I then remembered that the passenger side was the one that always had the "Subaru valve cover leak", but the driver side never had a problem.

 

Correlation doesn't always imply causation, so I was wondering if anyone else on the board had noticed if helicoil'ed valve cover bolts helped provide a better valve cover seal?

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I'm about to helicoil my passenger side as well because of the same problem. Have a few questions and am hoping for a few pointers. --> Is Helicoil better than permacoil? Which size kit do I need and how much can I expect to pay? Did you have any problems drilling out the top right threads? Looks like there is a little less material surrounding it to make room for the cam carrier bolt head. Were you happy with the results? Any help is appreciated.

 

Thanks,

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Hey its common for me I have to do it but I havn't had a chance to do it I juse used a longer bolt and a washer and it works but yeah it does still leak a little. Really quick. what size helicoil did you use and what size bit? and where did you get the helicoil?

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I'm away for the weekend right now, so I can't answer many questions. I haven't done anything since last sunday.

 

Flow;

One of the bolt holes had to be drilled all the way through, iirc, it was the one closest to the oil spout, so that would be top right.

 

I'll be able to get the other answers sunday evening.

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