Hey guys this is Steve at E36 Fanatics
Today I'm doing a Mercedes Benz CLK430 2003. I'm changing the valve cover gasket on it
And it's generally a pretty easy job on these cars. It's pretty common where the valve cover gasket will go bad on it and you have to replace
it every now and then. And a big indicator of it is the oil those cars get in, fouling up your spark plugs gradually
So the first step you're going to do, you go ahead and pull this, pull the cover off
of the Mercedes Benz engine and there's no like tabs you pull out or anything
You basically just pull up on the back and the front and you pull it out of this little
slit on the end. And the air ducts actually pop out while you're doing that too
So I'm going to do that now. Ok so this one I've taken off the cover of the motor which also happens to be, it's actually
the air filter, it's actually the air intake too. It's got the intake for both sides inside of it
So if you're ever looking to change the filter, it's actually inside here
So I'll start at this point and you can see you have two valve covers
You have one on this side and one on this side for each four cylinders
You can see this one's in much worse condition. You can see all the oil getting around it leaking out there
And just in general, this gasket is about time to be replaced definitely
On this one it looks a lot better. So I'm not going to replace that one actually, I'm going to leave it
So to replace the valve cover gasket, you have to pull out these parts for the wires
You also have to take off the dipstick. And then once you've got that and you also take off this breather hose, you can go ahead
and start removing the inverted torque bolts that are right throughout the valve cover
You also have to take off this right here, which it also has a second smaller gasket
You have to replace that too. And it's probably going to be in just as bad condition as the main valve cover gasket
Here it's actually coming off, you can see it. So that's what I'm going to do
Okay, so at this point I've taken off the battery pack, the spark plug packs, also the
slots that they were held right here. So now I'm ready to go ahead and remove the bolts that hold down the gasket for the valve cover
Also, I went ahead and took off this air hose that was attached right here
And so basically you're just going to run around the gasket with a, it's a E10, it looks
like there's about 10 bolts, I'll let you know for sure once I'm done
Also this dipstick is attached to this bolt right here, so you'll just push that out of
the way once you get the bolt out. And that's what I'm going to do next
Alright, so I've got the valve cover off now. At this point you can see the timing chain, you can see the valve and everything, it's
completely taken off. I've still got the gasket on, it's right, here's the gasket right here, just this little
rubber gasket is what we're taking off. We're just going to peel it off basically
So on this job there were 9 bolts on the actual valve cover, on the actual valve cover
and you can see them. And then you've got another 2 bolts, really long bolts inside the small cover on top of
the valve cover which also hold it down. Then once you've got that off, you can take a little rubber mallet, you might have to
knock, give it a love tap just to loosen it up, it's been sitting there for a very long time
Also make sure all your wires are out of the way, you don't want anything falling into
your valve or into your timing chain area or anything. So next step, we'll go ahead and take this, we'll go ahead and take this gasket off, replace
it with a new one and then I'm probably going to also replace the little gasket on the other
cover that's on top of the valve cover. Alright, so at this point I've reinstalled the valve cover and the valve cover gasket
I'll tell you this is a really easy job in general and if your valve cover is leaking
it's not at all hard to do for a DIY. So I went ahead and replaced the little gasket right here, there's a separate little valve
cover on top of the main valve cover which you'll notice when you take it off
And then there's the second main gasket right here. That orange stuff that you see is the gasket maker, I go ahead and add that
I go ahead and put a little bit around the new gasket just to help it seal, help it last longer
It's high temperature RTF, really good stuff here. Now, on this job when you put the valve cover back, you're going to want to make sure you
don't want to do, one thing you want to do is do one bolt at a time and tighten them
each in order. You want to do a zig zag pattern and just hand tighten it the first time around
Also, I actually had to, I didn't have to remove the ignition coil, however on the far
back one, it was in my way of getting it back, getting the valve cover back in, so I just
popped it, I just popped this out. All you had to do is take your hand and pull on it and it comes right out of the spark plug
This is the spark plug wire right here. All you had to do, how you had to do is pull on it
Alright, just make sure once you do this, put everything back the way it was and you'll
have a new valve cover gasket and no leaks. Alright, so at this point, I've got the gasket and everything back together, I've tightened
everything down, now I'm putting, I've put back on the coils and tightened them up and
I've reattached these wires to the coil pack. So, next, I've got everything tightened now, I'm going to go ahead and put back on the
cover, the engine cover slash air intake and I'm going to start the motor and hope this
helps you all out. You all have a good one