Valve cover leaks profusely. Tried many things.HELP

[RollinCole]

So I started by simply painting the valve cover, then I stupidly left the old gasket on which immediately leaked on all sides. I then replaced it with an OE cork set with the RTV pieces for the cam ends. It only leaks from the intake manifold side now, but a lot is being lost. When I installed the new gasket I used non silicone gasket sealant and attached the gasket to the cover first, cleaned off the head to a shine, re-applied and hand tightened the nuts to hand tight on a ratchet. What have I done wrong? Thanks!

[v8volvo]

The cork gaskets unfortunately are hopeless garbage. You need the one-piece rubber setup, which is sold by Volvo under p/n 9135894 or Goetze available in various places, about 20 bucks. It gets installed dry, no sealant at all, unless you want to put a tiny dab in the corners at the front and rear cam bearing caps.

Sometimes if someone has cranked the nuts down too hard on a cork gasket in the past, the valve cover can become distorted around the stud holes and cause leakage. Seems to be most commonly an issue at the rear passenger side, sometimes can be a pain to seal up leaks back there. You can carefully straighten out the cover by setting it on something narrow and flat and giving a few gentle taps around the bad spots.

Also make sure all the v/c studs are fully seated all the way down with their shoulders flush against the head -- if one or more of them backed out partially the last time you unscrewed the nuts, you'll get a big leak.

[745 TurboGreasel]

Originally Posted by v8volvo

Also make sure all the v/c studs are fully seated all the way down with their shoulders flush against the head -- if one or more of them backed out partially the last time you unscrewed the nuts, you'll get a big leak.

quoted for emphasis.

[RollinCole]

Thank you so much for the response!