katapaltes
'03 P5, '17 Miata, stock AF
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- Dallas, TX
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- 2003 Protege5
I was under my hood today looking at my valve cover gasket and noticed a stray piece of oil-soaked plastic around my timing belt cover. I started tickling it and it just came right out like a baby tooth. Some history: The valve cover bolts had worked themselves loose - literally only finger-tight - back at 99,000 miles and the car has 112,000 miles now. The car is not currently loosing oil as I tightened those valve cover bolts, but a quart of oil leaked during the time the bolts were loose and that's what you see in the pics. In the top pic, you can see some pad foaming at the top of the broken piece if that helps identify it. Can anyone tell me what part this piece came from and what I would need to replace? I will be replacing the valve cover gasket soon since it's leaking a [very] tiny bit nowadays. My car just turned 13 years old from the day I brought him home.
<a href="http://s1379.photobucket.com/user/katapaltes/media/car-piece-1_zpshs0rysw6.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1379.photobucket.com/albums/ah127/katapaltes/car-piece-1_zpshs0rysw6.jpg" border="0" alt="P5 plastic piece off car photo car-piece-1_zpshs0rysw6.jpg"/></a>
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<a href="http://s1379.photobucket.com/user/katapaltes/media/car-piece-1_zpshs0rysw6.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1379.photobucket.com/albums/ah127/katapaltes/car-piece-1_zpshs0rysw6.jpg" border="0" alt="P5 plastic piece off car photo car-piece-1_zpshs0rysw6.jpg"/></a>
<a href="http://s1379.photobucket.com/user/katapaltes/media/car-piece-2_zpsv2w1v3o0.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1379.photobucket.com/albums/ah127/katapaltes/car-piece-2_zpsv2w1v3o0.jpg" border="0" alt="P5 plastic piece on car photo car-piece-2_zpsv2w1v3o0.jpg"/></a>