Help me seal my G'damn valve covers.

[Nads]

I checked these Cal Custom jobbies on my SBC and they're flatter than Gwyneth Paltrow's chest (pre Apple) but they won't stop leaking. The old tin shit jobs leaked worse, so I guess that's an improvement.
You folks got any tips?
The tins on my Pakard and my 235 don't leak at all, what gives?


Thanks.

[Paul]

didja wipe them and the heads down with laquer thinner?

didja use your favorite goo on the valve covers only or both sides of the gasket?

Paul

[AHotRod]

If the cylinder head surface is porus, nicked or just plain not flat, it will cause the same problem as a bad or poor quality valve cover.
Fel Pro offers a valve cover gasket that will be the last and only one you'll ever need to buy.
Part # VS12869R

Trust Me.

[willowbilly3]

Tytpical sbc with the rough cast sealing surface on the heads. Do what chevy ended up doing, glue them on. Clean it up real good, Use paint thinner or brakeclean, then go over to the Toyota dealer and pay like $12 for a tube of their black silicon sealer. They call it FPG. Best shit I ever found. Put a bead of that on without a gasket. If that won't seal it, nothing will.
I have threatened if I ever build another sbc to have the top of the head milled to make a decent sealing surface like most other engines have.
BTW the FPG works great for intake and oilpan end gaskets.

[Roothawg]

This is the final time I will tell this......til next time.

Clean all that old crap off, buy cork gaskets. The thick ones not those crappy ones.
Buy some 3M gasket adhesive(yellow monkey snot) glue the gasket to the v/c (READ THE INSTRUCTIONS). DO NOT GLUE THE OTHER SIDE. Tighten but not too tight. Leave alone. Drive. Enjoy. Works every time.

[willowbilly3]

[ QUOTE ]
Tytpical sbc with the rough cast sealing surface on the heads. Do what chevy ended up doing, glue them on. Clean it up real good, Use paint thinner or brakeclean, then go over to the Toyota dealer and pay like $12 for a tube of their black silicon sealer. They call it FPG. Best shit I ever found. Put a bead of that on without a gasket. If that won't seal it, nothing will.
I have threatened if I ever build another sbc to have the top of the head milled to make a decent sealing surface like most other engines have.
BTW the FPG works great for intake and oilpan end gaskets.

[/ QUOTE ]

OOPS!! Correct that to FIPG, not FPG

[choprods]

sounds like a classic case of either no crankcas ventilation or jut PCV suckkin with no intake breathers. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gifbut Im wrong all the time so disreguard this........

[burndup]

Gwyneth Paltrow flat or Gwen Stefani flat?

[ray]

if you MUST glue that fucker in there, use black silicone to gluie the gasket to the valve cover, then use HYLOMAR to glue it to the heads on intsallation. hylomar doesn't dry, so it's great for things that get checked periodically, but won't ruin your gaskets.

[JRussell]

The best valve cover gaskets made for small block chevys are the perma-dry fel pro series! dont need no goop!rubber with a metaL insert comes with spredder bars there like 20 ish bucks.we sell the hell out of them to circle trackers they can pull them off and on all season and the still dont leak!

[zman]

I can not condone forgoing gaskets for silicone or any other sealer/glue. Always use the gasket. Always clean thoroughly. Use any sealer sparingly. I haven't ran into a valve cover I couldn't get to seal properly yet. Patience helps. I've been using the cork gaskets on small blocks with no problem and light coating of sealer on the bottom side only.

[Bruce Lancaster]

Sometime after I got real damn old I began to dislike getting real dirty whenever I worked on a car. I now refuse to touch any SBC head made before 1986.
If SBC's had been designed with actual sealable valve covers in 1955, we probably wouldn't be married to OPEC now--half of our oil is encrusted onto dead SBC's that are landfill now. We should mine this resource...
I noticed that at my favorite junkyard, I can invariably spot the early Chevys by looking for the filthiest lumps in the engine pile--post '86 ones look like all the Japanese engines, clean.
I used to kludge mine before anyone made the good soft gaskets by carefully installing one gooped cork gasket to the head, letting it dry, then treating it as a permanent flange and using another goopless gasket up top after body-working the cover on a flat slab of steel I kept just for this purpose.
Couldn't afford Vette covers and couldn't have afforded the good gasket back then...
Always found enough money to replace the wasted oil and gallons of spray cleaner to degoop the ignition wires...

[PRoz]

All the sealant ideas are good.
Except I never use silicone on or with a gasket. Some weatherstrip adhesive to hold a gasket in place is the only thing I use.
However, if you still can't get them to stop leaking look into tacking some thin alum
sheet metal onto the inside bottom of the v-cover to make a deflector.

Also, are the oil drainback holes clean? If they are gunked up with filth, don't know the condition of motor, or some kind of waywards ealant the oil will just puddle up in the corners of the head and not drain back good.

My .02

[Flat Ernie]

What Roothawg said:

[ QUOTE ]
This is the final time I will tell this......til next time.

Clean all that old crap off, buy cork gaskets. The thick ones not those crappy ones.
Buy some 3M gasket adhesive(yellow monkey snot) glue the gasket to the v/c (READ THE INSTRUCTIONS). DO NOT GLUE THE OTHER SIDE. Tighten but not too tight. Leave alone. Drive. Enjoy. Works every time.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll add to put regular grease on the bottom side for some give/seal.

Never had an engine I couldn't seal up like that.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

[Roothawg]

The 3m stuff is weatherstrip adhesive. If you will pu a coat on both sides...let it dry then wet one side or the other, it will reactivate the solvents and get REALLY gooey.
Hey, it's the only thing that holds on rubber deice boots on the leading edge of your small corporate airplanes. For real!

[Antibilly]

I got Nads the rubbers Glenn suggested. Ill see to it that he cleans the surface like a big boy and even glues them into the VC's like he's supposed to.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Jdee]

I can't help you seal them,
But I can help you make them look like wood!
With clean oil it would look like Sap dripping http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Jdee
PM me I'll send over some tools http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

[willowbilly3]

[ QUOTE ]
This is the final time I will tell this......til next time.

Clean all that old crap off, buy cork gaskets. The thick ones not those crappy ones.
Buy some 3M gasket adhesive(yellow monkey snot) glue the gasket to the v/c (READ THE INSTRUCTIONS). DO NOT GLUE THE OTHER SIDE. Tighten but not too tight. Leave alone. Drive. Enjoy. Works every time.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is my preferred method too. I usually use just a thin film of ultra blue silicon on the engine side tho. This just helps if you ever have to take it back off. And the FIPG sealer instead of gaskets is something I would only do to a sbc and that is because they are such a cheesy designed piece of---- to keep the oil inside of

[Mojo]

One thing that worked for me when I had a 350... I let it leak all over the god damned place.

Pros: never had to change oil, because it had a constant supply going in and out. The floor never got rusty, because of the 1/2" thick layer of baked on oil over the entire of the bottom.

Cons: Oil residue on the windshield, a bitch to clean. Oil stains on the ground. Now i'm not a tree hugger, but god damned i've ruined the creekbank in front of my parent's house permenent! And lastly, hearing the lifters rattle on the way to work because you forgot to put a quart in the day before is a bit nerve-chewing.