Valve Cover Gasket Question

I'm doing a valve adjustment in the morning and I've always heard conflicting opinions on valve cover gaskets. Should rubber gaskets get a thin coat of oil like an oil filter o-ring or should they go on dry?

Dry, maybe a skim coat of silicone on one side if you plan on pulling the covers often.

I was taught to use petroleum jelly (Vaseline), funny enough. Never had a leaky valve cover gasket issue after replacing, but maybe I'm just lucky.

Lets put it this way, how many times do you see an oil filter leaking because you oiled the gasket upon installation?

Valve covers tend to leak because the gasket doesn't get squashed properly. Folk habitually overtorque, distorting the valve cover itself. Many of the gaskets are also remarkably badly made, which doesn't help either.

What are these 'valve' covers you speak of? What are valves?

If the gasket doesn't have 'corners', I'll put a rubber one on dry. If it does have 'corners', like where it goes over a cam tower or similar, some gray silicone goes in the 'corners'.

'Flat' gasket:

Gasket with 'corners':

Making sure everything is clean and that the gasket is installed properly. As curmudgeon said. if there are corners ,a very small dad of silicone is good. Ford even reccomends it. Inproper tightening is often the cause of failure. Sequence and torque. A little oil won't hurt but not essential.

I skim mine with right stuff. I have a horrible track record of stuff leaking without it.

I do flat gaskets dry. Like Curmudgeon says, if they have a hump, a wee dab of black RTV in the corners is recommended.