Got the bolt out. It actually went pretty smoothly and my threads are still good.

One more question: the gasket between the top of the chain cover and the head got pretty banged up during reinstallation. I pulled it back where it was supposed to go but there are definitely some cracks in it. How much should I worry about this? Do I need to remove the head now to fix that?

 

It would be a good idea to just replace the head gasket. You dont want that leaking oil all over the place.

 

The valve cover gasket? Or the head gasket?

 

You are refering to the front part of the headgasket right? If so that part of the gasket only keeps oil in the engine it has no more pressure than crank case pressure. You could get buy with cleaning the gasket and applying RTV sealant to both sides of the gasket and putting a generous amount in the corners. If I remember correctly the nissan altima use to pay 13 hours for a timing chain because they wanted you to remove the head. They reduced the time down to 7 hours buy using sealant and not removing the head. In short the book answer is yes replace the headgasket. The real world answer is use the sealant and don't look back.

 

Yeah, I meant the front part of the head gasket--sorry for the ambiguous description. I think I will go ahead and replace it just because I already have some stuff torn down. And I want to take as good care of this engine as I can.

Probably start on that tomorrow. Wish me luck.