valve cover gaskets

pull the spark plug wires out by the boots attached to the plugs. The 4 big nuts are the only thing that hold it on...

The following is from an earlier posting, but relevant to your question:

1994 4 cylinder Recently replaced the valve cover gasket and torqued the 30 mm nuts on the spark plug tubes per Haynes to 29 ft. lbs. torque, very gradually and evenly tightened in many passes. When removing the cover nuts, they did seem quite loose, but I wrote this off to compression of the old gasket material. Now, having acquired the Toyota factory service manuals for the '94 Camry, and reading in more detail, I discover that when rebuilding the head (machining valves, etc.) and installing spark plug tubes into the head with thread adhesive, the nuts are used to install them, and torque is 29 ft. lbs. However, when installing the spark plug tube nuts to retain the valve cover, Toyota specifies the torque at only 17 ft. lbs. Perhaps, going to 29 ft. lbs, helps explain why after carefully setting the small points on the rubber seals facing forward under the nuts, they moved anyway during the tightening sequence.