Cam Cover Oil Leak

[thstone]

My '99 has a small cam cover oil leak. Actually, its more than a seep and less than what I'd call a leak (no drops on the garage floor, but I can see oil under the cam covers). Dealer said to just ignore it unless it gets much worse and said to re-seal the cam covers would be ~$1,000 in labor.

Really? Can someone tell me why re-sealing the cam covers is so time consuming?

I am not talking about taking off the heads, but just removing the cam covers, scraping off the old sealant and cleaning the surfaces, and reapplying new sealant and re-installing the covers. Sounds like ~3 hrs of work, not the 7-10 that I got from the dealer (and I read the same number of hours in various forums).

Can someone who's done this give me a quick run-down in regards to what am I missing or underestimating? When someone re-builds a Boxster engine do they spend 10 hours just getting the cam covers re-sealed?