Rubber valve cover gasket

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BandB
Posts: 16
Joined: Sun Mar 21, 2010 7:53 am
What year is your cabby?: 1988
Do you own a Cabriolet?: Yes

Rubber valve cover gasket

Post by BandB »

In my continuing effort to fix all of "Luvi's" oil leaks I ordered a single piece rubber valve cover gasket from European Auto. What I didn't realize at the time was that the existing cover studs would have to be removed and replaced with the shoulderless ones provided with the gasket. Over the years I've had less than good luck removing studs that have been in place for several years. Not wanting to take the chance of a broken or otherwise unuseable stud I put the project aside and gave it some additional thought.

The spacers embeded in the rubber gasket are aluminum and are very close in thickness to the height of the original stud shoulder. I figured if I could remove these spacers the gasket would fit over the original studs. I mounted the gasket in a vise and clamped it as close to the edge of each spacer as possible. Using a 3/8th inch drill I very carefully drilled out each one. I was surprised at how easily they came out.

When mounted the modified gasket fit perfecrly and the oil leaks have stopped.
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Briano1234
Whats that smell?
Posts: 4105
Joined: Mon Mar 21, 2005 5:45 am
What year is your cabby?: 1992
Do you own a Cabriolet?: No
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Re: Rubber valve cover gasket

Post by Briano1234 »

They make a couple of tools for stud removal.
The easiest one is that you take a pair of nuts, and jam them down on the stud using one to lock the other, then using a wrench tap the wrench handle with a
hammer to assist the torque.

Where I have seen most fail is trying to wrench it off with no torque assist as in a few hammer blows.

The other trick is to use a flat washer over the stud. Then clamp a pair of vice grips on the stud as tight as you can, then use a hammer to "tap" the stud loose.

Both tricks have served me well.

If you know the size of the stud, then you can get the replacements that have the 1/4 drive ends on them for inserting or removing them.

Nice to know about the drilling out, but I use the Victor-Reinz gasket, and that is metal strip that had rubber sandwiched on both sides, so drilling that is out of the question.

Don't get me wrong, I do "Cheat" on some things to get the thing on if I have to.
Briano

Yes as matter of fact, I have the Luck o'the Irish...everything I touch turns to fertilizer of the bovine variety.
You can lead a user to a link, but you can't make him Click.... :screwy:
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