I recently did the plug/cap leak repair job and all turned out well but after riding the fixed bike for a spell, I noticed some wetness around the "valve covers".  I tightened the covers back down with the addition of some blue lock-tite and now the little bastards are down for good but the oil is still weeping from around these covers.  My question is : Should I get new replacement o-rings or should I just smear some high temp silicone under there to seal it up?  Again, it isn't a major leak or anything but it is a little annoying to fix one leak only to cause a new one.

 
Take the covers off, remove the "O" rings, flat sand the flat surface of the covers on a full sheet of medium sandpaper just until the entire surface shows even sanding marks.

 
You have likely warped your valve covers a bit by over-tightening them.   The existing "O" rings will work fine in the slightly shallower channels produced by the sanding.  

Get four new bolts, the over-tightening causes bolt to stretch and can cause early failure, so get some new ones now before they break on you.

Locktite is not needed on the valve cover bolts -- you will be making trouble for yourself as the little bolts like to stretch and snap bad enough as it is -- with locktite your odds of bolt failure just went up a whole lot on the next remove.

Oldfeller--FSO wrote on 04/30/12 at 16:14:27:


I added the locktite because the bolts seemed to have vibrated loose causing my "extra" leak.  I didn't think over tightening (and perhaps warping the covers) was the issue because I really didn't wrench them down (a stubby 10 mm wrench was used) but a refacing of the mating surfaces on the covers might be the answer.  What do you think about some lock washers instead of chemical bonding to reduce vibration induced bolt loosening?