Except for SB, I think you guys are missing the point of a cam cover gasket.

Its design, which includes the mating surfaces of the head and cover, is to close the gap between two dimensionally large hunks of metal over varying temps, which otherwise would, by different rates of thermal expansion, not prevent the oil from splashing through. It keeps the splashing oil inside -- as long as the atmosphere exerts a larger pressure than does the air and vapor beneath the cam cover.

Once that pressure relationship is reversed, all the "stopgap" (ouch) sealant measures you can think of are not going to keep that oil from oozing out for long. It is a splash seal, not a pressure seal. Same for the rotating shaft seals that will be next to leak.


--
Art Benstein near Baltimore

Maybe it's true that life begins at fifty... but everything else starts to wear out, fall out, or spread out. - Phyllis Diller