[suprajim]

So, Friday I had finally got around to changing my leaky valve cover gaskets on my 92 Turbo. I took it out for a test drive afterward and blew out the heater control valve(the plastic pipe broke off inside the hose coming off the back of the head). When the pipe broke off, coolant shot everywhere in the engine bay. I was only around the corner so I got it home very quickly. The temp gauge didn't even start rising. I wiped down the engine a bit and let it sit to cool off/evaporate any remaining water/coolant. Today, I had replaced the heater valve, refilled the coolant, and started burping the system. It seemed like everything was running fine for about 20 minutes and the air was gone. Then, the engine started to lope. I turned off the car and pulled the #1 plug wire and it was almost completely full of coolant. I pulled the other plugs and it was the same story on each. So, I took a turkey baster and sucked all of the coolant out that I could and shoved some paper shop towels in each of the cylinders.

Would it be ok to pull the #3 cylinder head gasket (between valve covers) and reuse this? I just bought it and really don't want to replace it again or go to the oil plug gaskets. Can I just put a little RTV around the bolts? I figure pulling this would be the easiest way to get in there and dry everything off.

Should I worry about the little bit of coolant right around the plug if I pull it and clean it off? Or should I leave as is and hope that I don't need to pull the plugs?

Just to ease my concerns, is there anything else that could have caused this? I hadn't experienced any coolant loss lately and the oil was fine when I changed it with the valve cover gaskets. I don't recall taking any coolant hoses off when changing the gaskets either.