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Smokescreen?

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Also, some covers have handy little metal tabs on the inside to prevent the "dog-boning" inward. It's not that you need them, but on some stamped covers, it sure helps.
 
I let the glue set and now have a really nice gasket attachment. I put grease on the bottom, put the valve cover back on, and now the nuts won't thread with the existing washers. If I take the washers out, the nuts will thread, but I still need some kind of washer to hold down the valve cover snugly. My guess is the gasket needs to be compressed about 1/16 to 1/8 inch. I don't know if I should try to push it down by hand or just go to the hardware store and get thinner washers.

Update: Actually it appears that either the bolt is stripped or the rear stud that it attaches to under the valve cover is stripped. Even with no washer the bolt will tighten and then loosen up again. I'm hoping it's just the bolt. I was able to get the front bolt / washer on without any problems. When I swapped the bolts, the one on the rear wouldn't tighten down on the front, but the front wouldn't catch the rear stud either.
 
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For some reason, the stud bolt was just too short. I swapped it with an adjoining stud that was taller and problem solved. The gluing the gasket and grease combination worked well. Even with the rear half of the valve cover not torqued down, I only had one small oil leak. I imagine that will be gone now that I solved the problem with holding down the valve cover.
 
After the various "teething troubles" I had with Baby Blue, I ended up settling down into a relatively uneventful summer of driving and "weekly exercise", just tossing in a quart of oil every other tankful, partially from leakage and little bit from burning off. As the driving season is winding down, I can tell things aren't exactly 100% in adjustment. It's not bad enough to take the car off the road, but enough to notice a bit of a difference. One has been the return of the smokescreen -- but this time it came in handy:

I had Baby Blue out for its regular weekly exercise, with my daughter riding shotgun as usual. We were driving the roads around Little Bennett Regional Park, which have some very long upgrades. I had this one jerk tailgating me, even though I was running about 5 over the speed limit. He stayed on my bumper down a long downgrade, where I was able to let off the gas and coast while still in gear and maintain speed. When I got back in the gas at the bottom of the hill and started heading up the next hill, Baby Blue let out a nice big puff of blue smoke, almost as if Baby Blue was flipping off the tailgater the only way she knew how. Needless to say, the driver gave me a bit more space after that, and at the next intersection, I turned off and the offender went on his way.

Yes, I know I have to readjust the valves again. With about a month to go before I take the car off the road for winter maintenance, I figure I'll just live with it for now and do the adjustments over the winter.
 
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