Terrible shop and valve cover gasket questions

When I first bought my Tacoma and wanted to get into working on it, one of the first things I did was change the spark plugs, easy simple job. However I found oil on them, made my first post here , and found it to be the valve cover gasket. I looked into the process and found it to be over my head. I brought it to a shop in my area called Carrol’s automotive becaude I wasn’t confident enough to do the job myself. Both gaskets were leaking into the spark plug well. Fast foward to now (10 monthes and 8k miles later) oil is leaking out the left side of the valve cover. Terrible costumer service and extremely high price justified by “we only hire the best mechanics” “screw you”
Of course my post is not to gain pity from those who also hate losing money but to ask a couple questions.
1. I’m guessing OEM is the only way to go on gaskets, but does rock auto have any good ones?
2. I know I have to take off the intake manifold, how can I clean that?
3. What is the real word benefits/ downsides to an intake manifold spacer? I know in lengthens the runners but if it was great, why wouldn’t Toyota just make the manifold longer?
4. Can I use an autozone torque wrench? Or should I invest in higher quality?
Money is a huge concern for me in this as I make 3 dollars over minimum wage. (Hypocritical I know, as I’m taking about adding manifold spacers.
and remember, no one cares about your truck as much as you do, they can only pretend. Do the work yourself and do it right.

 

1. I’d go OEM

2. You shouldn’t need to remove the intake manifold to change the valve cover gasket. Brake parts cleaner or intake/carb cleaner is good to clean it up.

3. Downsides are that your factory hoses connected to the manifold no longer fit very well. Some harnesses get stretched and barely reach. The fit and finish is the real loser with these. But it can be overcome if you want it right.

4. The autozone torque wrench should be fine, just make sure you get one for inch pounds as the torque value is not very high on the valve cover.

 

1. OEM, or Victor Rienze or Mahle from Rock auto

2. I just remove the plenum and shoot a bit of penetrating cleaner or throttle cleaner on the intake manifold ports, then wipe, blow out. The throttle 100% should be cleaned along with MAF during this process.

3. No reason to use the intake spacer unless you're really determined for a bit more gain at full throttle, doubtful it would actually change horsepower but more how it behaves at WOT

4. Don't torque small fasteners with cheap torque wrenches, a standard 1/4 ratchet with a snug cross pattern is all I use. I find torque wrenches lead to stripped fasteners, especially the smaller ones.

Edit, whoops.

 

Doesn't matter how good the techs are if the shop cheaps out on parts, or it could be the tech made a mistake. I've had both happen to me working in a shop.

Most of the aftermarket gasket brands aren't what they used to be, if you can't swing OEM just pick something off rock auto or the parts store. Fel-Pro and Mahle used to be pretty good but alot of their gaskets are made in china now and some are pretty crap.

You just need to remove the upper intake, fairly easy to blow any debris from around it with compressed air.

Toyota already uses dual length intake runners switched by a vacuum diaphragm, it's called Acoustic Control Induction System (ACIS).

I generally don't trust cheap torque wrenches unless I can verify their accuracy especially on small fasteners, I'm more of a fan of digital torque wrenches over click type for low torque stuff but they do work fine if calibrated properly.
If you wrench alot you can get close enough without a torque wrench on non-critical fasteners.

 

Thank y’all 3,
1. Definitely going OEM, it’s like 35 bucks each so not bad.
2. Seems easy enough, I cleaned the MAF and throttle body not long ago but I didn’t take the throttle body fully off, I’m thinking I will this time. If I got a big can of throttle body cleaner, could I use that for the intake plenum?
3. I’ll do some more research, I think there are some threads on here.
4. I have one buddy who’s dad does some work on cars, maybe I’ll shoot him a text and see if he has something I can borrow.

I get that, I will say I’m positive this is the work, maybe bad gasket too, but definitely the work as about a month later I was doing some work and noticed one of the valve cover bolts was not even hand tightened, legitimately barely threaded in. I went through and confirmed none of the bolts of the left had been tightened past hand tight. The right side was fine and still it. I tightened them then but I guess not enough.

 

I would get the spark plug tube seals as well if the gasket set doesn't come with them (not all valve cover sets do).

You can use pretty much any solvent to clean the inside of the intake but it really isn't necessary, the main thing is that the mating surfaces are clean and it's a good idea to clean the throttle body.

Certainly sounds like they weren't properly tightened, I will say there are certain engines where I have had the valve cover bolts loosen over time even though they are properly torqued. I use a bit of blue threadlocker on those ones if I have any doubt about them staying tight.

 

This ^^. I had oil on one spark plug. Checked the valve cover bolt next to it and it wasn't torqued to spec. Check those first.