One of the most common problems with aging cars are oil leaks around the valve covers. They are also some of the easiest to fix on your own.
The tools you will need are a basic set of ratchets, a new valve cover seal, possibly a rubber hammer and a flathead screw driver. Purchase a new tube of gasket seal also. Depending on the room you have to work within your engine bay you may have to remove a few other parts such as the plenum. But if this concerns you at all, simply take a bunch of before pictures with your camera for references.
The leaking valve cover is generally held on by eight 10 -12 mm bolts. Remove the bolts one by one, and remove the valve cover. If you find the valve cover will not come off, tap it with the rubber hammer until the valve cover is removed.
With the valve cover removed you can see some internal parts such as the roller rockers and see if your having oil build up. It will look like a thick build up of oil that can give you a good idea of the condition of your engine. If this is the case you can purchase an oil flush to take care of this issue but that is for another article.
Take your removed valve cover and remove the old seal. If it doesn’t come off with you pulling on it, you can take the flathead screwdriver and scrape the old seal off. Make sure you remove all of the old seal and then apply a small but continuous coat of gasket seal onto the valve cover gasket. Then add the new valve cover gasket on top of the gasket seal. Next add your gasket seal to the head of the engine. This is the part of the motor that you removed the valve cover from.
Then carefully place your valve cover gasket on top of the head and add a few of the bolt back onto the head to retighten it to the motor. As you add the remaining bolts by hand, then tighten them up with the ratchet you used to remove them.
Tighten them up very, snuggly.
You have now fixed your oil leak and saved yourself around $100 from a repair bill at the repair shop.