Valve Seal Troubleshooting for Dummies

Valve stem seal

If you're reading this in 2020, you may be familiar with the pickup truck commercial highlighting a "jaw-dropping" feature of the product, but an optional tailgate is not the only thing that can cause our staffers' jaws to hit their chests. No, abject stupidity from some freelancer often does the trick. Let's have a look at the latest such dumbassery, a post at Leaf Group niche site ItStillRuns.com written by Tyler Ellington for eHow.com in 2011. The content supposedly tells readers, "How to Stop Engine Valve Seals From Leaking."

As even Ellington can tell you (or so we'd like to think), the only way to stop a valve seal from leaking is to replace the sucker... all of them, in fact. If a temporary fix is good enough for you, you can always dump some StopLeak® or Rislone® in the crankcase every couple of weeks, but that is only temporary. However, we aren't really certain you can trust advice from someone who tells you that,

"The most common leak is oil and it will be dark brown or yellow in color. If your oil level is low, you should check the valve cover and oil pan gaskets to see if there is a leaking seal..."

...wait, what? A valve seal is internal to the engine, Tyler you idjit! And then there's this "solution" to the problem:

"Replace the leaking seal. Remove the cover over the seal. Scrape away any buildup that has occurred on the area where the new gasket will go. Put gasket sealer on both sides of the new gasket if it is made of cork. If it is made of rubber, you will not need to apply the sealer. Position the new gasket into place in the spot where the old one was. Put the cover back on the new gasket and tighten the bolts."

Dear Lord, this moron thinks that a valve cover gasket and a valve seal are the same thing. Well, Tyler, they aren't: a valve seal is a hard rubber seal, and one of them surrounds each valve stem within the engine block. Replacing one or more valve seals is hella different from replacing the valve cover gasket. No wonder Tyler's collecting another Dumbass of the Day award for this dreck!

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