My car has 29k on it with the upgraded valve cover and is leaking up front. I took it to a local Mini shop and they said it's not bad and I could probably get away for a lot longer with it, but these things bug me.

I looked on Youtube and found a vid of a guy getting his off and it literally took him three minutes, so I guess my question is....is it really that easy? Anything in particular I need to look for?

I really appreciate any feedback before I jump into this as I don't want to spend the $400 quoted to me from the shop if it really is as easy as it looked on the video.

 

Its really easy.. On my r53 a couple of the bolts are really long so wire clamps can be attached. My deep sockets were too short, so I just dremeled 1com off the top.

 

I replaced my valve cover due to it leaking from a problem with the included PCV. It was very easy and straight-forward. I took my time and made sure the surface of the head was nice and clean so it wouldn't leak. The whole job took 20 minutes. 5k miles later and all is well.

I say go for it.

 

So the Bentley manual says to apply a thin layer "anti-friction compound such as glycerine" to the cylinder head contact surfaces. Has anyone done this? Is it completely necessary? What exactly is anti-friction compound?

 

Took a little longer than minutes, mainly because I prefer to just take things apart vs reading tech manuals, but still only took about hour. And I was being super meticulous cleaning everything and checking other stuff while I was in there.

 

Nope. Cleaned the surface with a clean rag, gasket right to the clean surface. Not sure why it would need anti friction, it shouldn't move. At least not outside the flexibility of the rubber gasket.