Originally Posted by
maxcichon
I had no torque pattern to follow. I just brought everything finger-tight and eased them in. I don't remember the spec, but I did use a torque wrench.
Originally Posted by
dedwards0323
During re-assembly of breather cover I checked for valve cover bolt torque setting and found 10 N-m (7-8 Ft-lbs) in the shop manual. After I tightened the 2 bolts that pass thru the breather cover, I checked the remaining valve cover bolts. Found all of them less than 10 N-m. Re-tightened these bolts also. Then I tightened the 2 small hex head machine screws in the breather cover to 5-6 N-m (slightly over snug).
If you're going to use a torque value for the small M5-0.80x16 mm SHCS's. I'd suggest the 5-6 N-m I found in the shop manual. These are aluminum and, as stated earlier, don't need to be any tighter than slightly above snug. Otherwise, these screws are prone to shearing during assembly since the yield stress is very low.
I'd also recommend replacing these screws once you remove them during the repair. Not a good maintenance practice to re-use these because they are aluminum.
Or you can opt to replace these aluminum screws with corrosion-resistant steel versions (some folks use SS, too) and get away from the weak aluminum screws. But as
onehundred80 stated, one has to be careful to not over-tighten these mounting screws as the aluminum-magnesium breather covers could experience permanent deformation/warping due to excessive fastening loads.