I got started back on the valve cover gaskets about 8 this morning, and finished about 5pm. Only a couple short breaks when it rained. I cleaned the throttle body well too.

I "only" lost 2 bolts I couldnt find after dropping them under the engine. One was a heater pipe bolt, no big deal, it had two holding it. And one was a valve cover bolt, I might need to replace that one eventually, but its not leaking without it. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

No big surprises on the passenger side, except that I couldnt remove a heat shield from the exhaust manifold to get a bracket off. The bolts felt like they were buggering up, so I just bent the heat shield out the way. Thank goodness the rest of the bolts were a breeze. I wish the manual had said to remove the passenger tire, it would make it easier to get to the bracket bolts.

Its amazing how hard and brittle the gaskets and plug tube seals were. The gaskets on both sides had shrunk and split open and thats where oil was flowing down onto the exhaust manifolds.

So I go out and drive it around carefully, its still misbehaving, come home and leave the lights on 5-10 minutes with engine not running while picking up my tools,
I go to crank it to move it, It wont crank. No battery juice, battery is close to dead? or it could be a bad cable. I think this is confirmation that I have an alternator problem, A battery problem, a battery cable problem, or some combination of the above.

This is what my wife said it did to her once, died and acted like batt was dead, wouldnt turn over, then a few minutes later it did. Of course I didnt believe her, I figured she had just left it in drive and so it wouldnt crank.