boredazhell20

Yea I think the valve cover bolts have crush washers. If you try and do a valve cover leak job without putting some spacers between it, the bolts will never torque to spec. When I did mine I just used 2 5/16 washers for each bolt. Gave enough space for the bolt to make the valve cover tighten to spec.

Hey guys. Selling a pretty clean 2000 Lexus ES300 Platinum edition. The car has 190k miles. The car runs awesome. Engine and transmission is solid. No overheat issues. Headgaskets and now valve covers do not have any leaks. I did a few things to do the car to get it ready to sell: 1. Replaced both valve cover gaskets. No sign of engine slug at all when I performed this job. 2. Replaced all spark plugs since I was already in there. I don't know what toyota would charge to do this job since you have to take off the manifold to get to them. So I guess a benefit for the new owner. lol 3. Replaced oil pan. I guess her mechanic never torque the oil drain plug correctly so it was stripped over time and had a slow leak which was annoying for my drive way. 4. Just did an oil change with pennsoil synthetic since I was already doing the oil pan replacement. 5. Has 4 new tires. It's a pretty clean ES300. It is a 15 year old car so it has it's share of dings and small dents, but nothing major which still shows well. $3000 for the car. Email boredazhell20@yahoo.com if interested.

+1 for the suggestions above. Usually with overheating issues I would check the following: 1. electric fans kick on as stated above? 2. Did you have any engine codes pop up before the overheating occured? 3. Does the coolant levels drop? Any coolant in the reserve tank? 4. Headgaskets might be an issue. I will check for leaks and pressure test as stated above. 5. Thermostat might have failed shut. Check the thermostat (easy to access). 6. Worst case scenerio I've seen is that the wrong coolant was used or some quick fix coolant leak solution (which is crap) which cakes up and causes the cooling efficiency to go down dramatically.