Driving without valve cover?

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D

d2b

Junior Member
I have a question. I am doing a swap soon and i need to get my car from my garage to the shop which is about 40 km from my house. The problem is that all my valve cover screws are broken and it cant be tightened down. I have not driven the car since this happened nor do i care that it happened since im doing a swap anyways. My question is (even though i know oil will spill everywhere), can i drive for 40 km with the valve cover loose or is there any way i can tighten the cover down so it leaks less oil? My car is too damn low to tow, is this dangerous in any way? Thanks for the opinions everybody.
 
I would say no...you will lose oil faster than you think and probablly not make it. throw some stock springs back on and get it towed. Actually my old hatch was slammed and they got it onto a flatbed with no damage
 
you can not drive it
you will shoot every bit of oil out of the car in about 20 seconds
you might as well drain all of the oil and try it that way at least then you wont be pissing oil all over the ground

you should have no problem getting the car onto a flat bed
get it towed
 
Why not fix the studs? You could probably get away with 2 of them if you use a buttload of hondabond. If you attempt to drive without a valve cover you are going to have oil spewing all over your windshield.
 
First of all, why and how in the hell are all of your screws broken? (besides the point, just curious)

Get your grandma's taurus with the tow hitch on the back, hook it up with a $16 come-along, you steer your car in neutral and have your grandma drive her taurus extremely slow (like usual) to where it needs to go. Hell i pulled a mustang w/20in rims with my nana 3.0 v6 taurus and it got there just fine. saved me 80 frikin dollars.
Just an idea if you're too cheap to tow it like me. :mrgreen:
 
a 6 dollar problem turns into a new engine...people please stop thinking your asses...thanks...oh yeah get a tow....thats all
 
We get some seriously hillarious questions around here sometimes.

If you don't care about the motor, or a little mess, slap that valve cover in place, and tie a rope/strap/whatever from under the distributor to the other side under the motor mount. Tighten as much as possible.

Try to keep the rpms down, and don't drive fast.
You only need about 10 ft lbs of even pressure to keep it sealed.
You might try putting something on top of the valve cover and shutting the hood on it, too.. Like a bunched up towel or something.. but that might damage your hood. and catch fire.

God this is making me laugh my ass off as I type it...

You need to apply pressure to the valve cover. It doesn't have to be very much.


And how the hell did you break all four studs? Those nuts are only supposed to be tightened to 10 ft lbs...
 
I work for AAA & drive a flatbed...I do this all day long...if the tow truck
driver has the right equipment, (that being ramps or wood) he should have no problem getting your car up on the bed. If I was you, make sure he uses ramps/wood if your car is that low or start looking into a new bumper.
 
:werd:

If you tell the tow dispatcher that you have a really low car, they WILL find someone with the proper equipment to get the car onto a flatbed.
 
a friend of mine out here in dallas said there is a wrecker service with a hinged gate that can lift lowered cars without damage...sounds cool, but i think my muffler would still hit the ground....but my bumpers would be there.
 
senate_9427 @ Oct 15 2005 said:
Quoted post[/post]]
RTV sealant and some duct tape :wink: It'll fix anything
Click to expand...
Duct tape is the best. Tape a sock over the oil fill hole too if you do that. If you leave the normal cap on, there will be too much crankcase pressure for the duct tape, and it will blow the seal loose. haha this is a funny question. Or you could do this..get some new/used valve cover studs and nuts from the boneyard for like 5 dollars, and the problem is solved. You are way too cheap if you can't do this. LOL
 
I have to admit that after seeing the topic on this thread, I didn't expect much of a read... but this got me rollin... If your as cheap as you seem go to Lowe's or Home Depot or whatever the hell is near you and get some carriage bolts that will thread down into the head, then use enough washers to make them a tight seal. It'll be ugly and wrong, but it will for damn sure hold the valve cover down for 40km, and keep you under what seems to be a $5 budget. I'm sure a Haynes or maybe a hondaswap member with enough pity for you will tell you the correct threading so you dont need to guess and test, but I'd rather see pictures when another idea doesn't work :laugh:
 
I vote you try mine, tie it down and put a towel between the valve cover and hood. Then video what happens, post it up here, and make the background music "Say it ain't so"... just for good measure.
 
the funny thing is the car will prob make it that far with no oil and no coolant...

its a honda, come on...
 
After I wrecked my integra I only got about 7 miles before it started to pickup in temp, of course my radiator was bent in half and all the coolant was at the scene of the crash.
 
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