Cracked valve covers on 2.7 2TR-FE I4 engines

I've done plenty of googling about this before and haven't found a great deal of people experiencing this so here's what I've gathered so far:

At 200k (bought truck with 193k) my valve cover kept leaking despite a new Beck Arnley gasket. It definitely had cracks in multiple areas because someone before me had already stripped a few of the brass to plastic mating areas for screws that secured the intake over the engine. So I'm guessing they may have over tightened some things and cracked it.

Looking around I could not find any sources of the valve cover in USA. There were only a couple ebayers selling them from Malaysia with the same Toyota logo on them. I figured they may have been related to the OEM factory that cast them for Toyota because of the Toyota logo, excellent casting that looked like my native one, and since I'm sure Toyota doesn't make everything in-house. They were about 190 or so after shipping. My leak persisted and I didn't feel like spending 190 at that time (it wasn't too fast of a leak).

Recently I got bored and went on Rock Auto (I checked before too) and suddenly they got the valve cover for our 2.7 2TR-FE engines when nobody else does! I got super excited. I thought maybe they formed a deal with the Malaysian manufacturer to import them? The price was about half, 80 bucks. I couldn't believe it.

When I received it, I noticed it was missing the Toyota logo, didn't look like the Malaysian one which looked like the original, and plastic casting wasn't as perfect. But it wasn't bad either. So I realized that a Chinese company started copying them. Please don't start any redneck American vs Chinese rants (especially while you type them on your Chinese made phone/computer). I don't care where it's from as long as it works good. I installed it, and everything was dry. I was quite happy.

Now I'm getting tons of oil smell and come to find out it's leaking in the back by the bolt right beneath the PCV housing. Since it's brand new, I highly doubt it's the gasket that came with it (seemed decent quality). I'm sure it cracked. I'm pissed, and going to raise hell if Rock Auto doesn't take it back (been 1.5 mo, but way too soon to fail).

So I just wanted to post this so it's out there, and see if anyone else has gone through this headache and what they ended up doing or finding out.

Does anyone know how much dealer charges for the OEM part?

I love Toyota reliability but these plastic valve covers are absolute TRASH! OEM or otherwise.

 

i have a 170 thousand on mine....replaced the gasket once at 150k.

 

check out ROCKAUTOs return policies

 

Not interested with return policy (I'm only 3 days past 30 days since it arrived) or people who don't have the issue. I wanted to see if anyone else has run into anything similar.

I do wish they made these in aluminum. Worst case scenario I could just request a warranty replacement but if the next one cracks within a month I might just have someone CNC mill me a flange surface so I can weld the rest of the calve cover myself.

 

https://parts.camelbacktoyota.com/p...cleid=190119&diagram=F802035&diagramCallOut=3

 

Thanks for that site, bookmarked. 259 isn't as bad as I thought it would be. I wonder if the Malaysian source is the OEM supplier (90% sure it is), they recently dropped down to 150 with shipping now. But an aluminum version is pretty tempting now .

This is the listing I was referring to:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Valve-Cove...r-Prado-1TR-2TR/252759088293?autorefresh=true

 

@941tech
Hope that you find something that works long term, looking at that cover I’d sure hate to have to Tig one up.

 

run that OEM part number you might pick one up cheaper than that site Online somewhere

 

Right? It does look very cumbersome and that's without even considering the baffles. But it definitely would be quite a neat accomplishment.

I was thinking of doing that too. Hopefully it won't have to get to that point. I'm going to dry it out with brakleen later and see exactly how and where it cracked, and get in touch with RA tomorrow.

 

Search carpart.com for a cylinder head that has one included.

 

Not a bad idea. To buy it with the cylinder head and have a spare one? Or to ask them to buy it separately? If I did have a spare head it would definitely make it easy for me to fabricate a flange and turbo manifold for this engine... hmm..

 

There are some other domestic seller cheaper than $259.53 and then there's this:

https://www.ebay.com/p/1120175055-T...ne-OEM-Part/658153431?iid=352584172747&chn=ps

 

Wow

I'm going to see if I can return the Rock Auto one then lol. I would have bought that for 135 if I could have. Not that big of a difference from 80 something for the generic Chinesium one on RA. Thank you.

 

please let us know how this works out for you.

 

Are you sure it's not leaking from the pcv valve hole? Is there a bunch of crank-case pressure pushing oil out past the pcv grommet? With the engine running, take the oil cap off and see if there is blow-by coming out. Hold a piece of paper over the fill hole and see if it balloons up

 

maybe the PCV valve is clogged

 

Those are all good ideas to check, but my engine doesn't produce that much blowby. Internals are pretty clean for 246k miles. I took a picture of that area 10x to get a very crisp sharp image and everything about the PCV is dry. It's around the back bolt right beneath it leading me to believe that corner cracked. It's a weak spot in the design I think, because my previous cover also had leaks in that area (though it also had a few on top by the coils). But I'll double check today with some brakleen and air to dry it off quickly and watch it spread.