The mechanic I talked to made it seem worse than I think it is. I was doing a little research on stripped valve cover bolts and it seems you have to re thread it. I guess they didn't do it right though. Hopefully I can get this fixed and have it not cost an arm and a leg.

 

If you pull the cover off without stretching the gasket you can reuse the gasket but still use some rtv as well.

Just have to take the bolts out the try and wiggle the cover out

 

Is that new bolt tight? u may just need to seal the vale cover, wont know untill u remove it

 

I'm by no means a professional mechanic, so when I was replacing my cylinder head and it came time to put the valve covers back on I spent an abnormal amour of time swearing at the garbage aftermarket gaskets.

Sounds like worst case scenario they can just fill and rethread the head.

Good luck.

 

Ok so I just went in and tried to figure this out. I tried to tighten that screw but it just kept spinning, that means its stripped right? I could not tighten it down all the way. I took it out and changed it with another screw on the same valve cover, still no luck getting it to fasten. Turns out the bigger bolt just had a bigger head but the screw itself was the same size. That mechanic is an idiot and didn't even unscrew it before making such claims and he did to me scaring the heck out of me.

So now that I know for sure that it is stripped I can go ahead and get it re threaded.

 

Yep just needs a helicoil

 

Exactly what I was going to say. Helicoil and be done with it.

 

^This. I'll bet you have aftermarket gaskets like felpros. Take them off and throw them out. Mine were leaking within 3k miles. I took my old ORIGINAL FACTORY FORD (with 87k miles on them mind you) gaskets, wiped them off and tossed them on. Bam leak gone. Point here is go to FORD and buy FORD gaskets.

^This.

If there is not enough material to helicoil, try a bigger bolt and tapping new threads in the hole. Far as RTV you don't need any on the gaskets, just on the 2 (or is it 4?) points where Ford specs it. And just a dumb tip, check all the other bolts and make sure they are torqued to spec.