Plenty of citations about the ease of the project of new valve cover seals and new seals for the spark plug wells. Any actual guidance on how to actually remove the L-bracket on the outboard sides of the valve covers? Bracket seems very firm and cannot seem to figure out how to swing it out of the way to release the last of the grommets on either side fastening each respective valve cover. Any specific guidance would be very much appreciated.

 

Update: above is a good pic of the culprit - the dreaded L-bracket (no clear pics could be found) - on the back outboard side of the left and right valve cover. Seems the prevailing wisdom to cut a small channel to allow the stud, once loose, to pass through the bracket toward the front of the car, as the valve cover is lifted off and away from the engine - white slash mark is factory.

Typical methodology employed for the cut in the bracket is using a hacksaw blade. Would likely take a while to do so, even though the bracket is hardened plastic. I am thinking a small electric Dremel cutting tool attachment - hard enough to get up to it, so small size of the tool and that it is powered, should make for accuracy and quick work. Further update to follow…

 

Further update: the Dremel tool is the way to go, basically following the white factory slash mark in the pic above, creating a channel in the plastic bracket, which has a metal core. Once created, that channel will allow the bracket to be pushed off the stud and out of the way - actually pushes away quite easily. The grommet and stud fastener with the 10mm nut then is exposed and can be loosened, along with the other fasteners which hold the valve cover in the proper place. Pic of the front matching stud shown below for reference to what the rear one looks like when the L-bracket is pushed away.



For re-installation, nut can then adequately re-secure the bracket onto the stud - apparently common practice, even at some AM dealers.

 

Why do they (AM) even have a washer, spacer like that? What would the purpose be? OOOO yea so the Dealer can do it$.

 

An expensive endeavor for the dealer to do this installation, for sure. With my limited perspective, hard to say the purpose behind these L-brackets on the rear outboard side of each valve cover, save what I can spot that they do - secure the coil harness. Like so much on our cars, this too appears over engineered, though not well engineered, as likely a better solution could have been developed that would not entail such an arduous process to disconnect for service work.