Change oil after valve cover gasket replacement?

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Should the engine oil be changed after having a valve cover gasket replaced? I'm just wondering if the silicone lube they use to seat the gasket could potentially get into the oil and cause excessive wear.

I guess I should have asked this question 2k miles ago when I had the gasket replaced, but I'm curious nonetheless... getting ready to change the oil soon anyway.
 
Should not be a problem and will get caught in the filter. Ideally it would be nice to time an oil change right after major work.
If work was done that caused a lot of carbon and small gunk and sludge to break loose then I would say change it. But if not I would not worry.
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Should the engine oil be changed after having a valve cover gasket replaced? I'm just wondering if the silicone lube they use to seat the gasket could potentially get into the oil and cause excessive wear.


Hmm, what makes you think they bothered using silicone lube? The problem with the silicone wouldn't be wear, it would be O2 sensor contamination. However, if you presume the tech used a gasket lubricant, he probably used an O2 sensor safe material.
 
Originally Posted By: moribundman
Hmm, what makes you think they bothered using silicone lube?

Good point. I don't really know what they used, if anything at all.

Thanks for the responses, everyone.
 
Don't worry about it...all silicone can really do is cause massive oil aeration....
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I changed valve cover gaskets on my my first two Jags with an inline six, and did not change the oil until it became due. I don't recall the shop manual saying anything about doing an oil change when you do the gasket.

They went to 238K and 177K miles, respectively, so I think it was OK ...

The only place silicone sealer was even used was on the little half moon seal at the back of the head. Never had a BMW, so maybe they are different.
 
If you worry about anything worry about the solvent they used to clean the mating surfaces. But they likely toweled off or let evaporate most of what they spritzed.

If it's something like brake cleaner it'll evaporate through the PCV system (mostly?)

It was mentioned on here brake cleaner and carb/tb cleaner have the same basic ingredients but in different proportions... so if it's ok to ingest I don't see any real harm.
 
if you send a valve cover gasket with rtv on it to felpro for warrenty they will NOT give a warrenty. i like prematex #2
 
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