Valve cover off, now what?

DoctorC

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Hi all,

I popped the hood today because my breather cap grommet finally arrived and to put in a baffled pcv grommet.

I noticed yesterday it started stumbling off the line. Today, when I pop the hood, lo and behold the breather cap and gromit are gone. No wonder I was having stumbling issues.

So, afraid that the grommet dropped into the valve cover I pulled it off to see if there were pieces of rubber everywhere. Luckily they were not, but I did find the ring to the cap to a bottle of oil kicking around.

So, now that I have the valve cover off (turns out the PCV is baffled in this valve cover, yay) I noticed everything is red. I assume that's oxidized iron. in the middle around Pistons 3 and 4 there's some Gunk buildup around the valve springs, I suppose I should clean that off. any suggestions how's the best way to do that? Should I just flush with acetone?

Also, now that I have the valve cover off, is there anything I should be doing /checking / looking at?

For those who love pictures, there's a few in attachment.

Thanks!
 

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Looks like it has been rebuild and the red looks like paint to me.
If you scrape the gunk, pieces may clog up the oil pickup, maybe rub it away with a rag with solvent on it.
 
It looks like you have the stock Ford stamped valve cover. Great Ford already has baffles in the valve cover.
Thus you don't need a baffled pcv grommet.
Only the junk cast aluminium valve covers need the baffled pcv grommet.
 
U done alota wrk, now don't waste it.

"...is there anything I should be doing..."
ck everything by eye (passages, tightness of every prt, smell, color. Do the rockers land right? spin PR, pedistals loose? gotta tq wrench? etc, etc. Baffel looks after mrkt, C if it's OK too, decide ona frnt 1) and so forth.
The red looks like paint - means a rebuild at some point (2 me) doesn't it go up on mating surface to head (gasket area?).

I C no 'gunk'.

Lesson seeking? run it w/ vc off for 20 sec. What can happen? Oil all over? possibly, possibly U will C the path way to learn a lill...not interested? ahhh, no sense of adventure...
:eek:
 
drag-200stang":1nmfuf82 said:
Looks like it has been rebuild and the red looks like paint to me.
If you scrape the gunk, pieces may clog up the oil pickup, maybe rub it away with a rag with solvent on it.

This is welcome news. The PO had no idea of the mileage or state of the engine other than "it runs ok". Speedo says 62k.

chad":1nmfuf82 said:
U done alota wrk, now don't waste it.

"...is there anything I should be doing..."
ck everything by eye (passages, tightness of every prt, smell, color. Do the rockers land right? spin PR, pedistals loose? gotta tq wrench? etc, etc. Baffel looks after mrkt, C if it's OK too, decide ona frnt 1) and so forth.
The red looks like paint - means a rebuild at some point (2 me) doesn't it go up on mating surface to head (gasket area?).

Ok, this is what i was looking for chad! Smell was lightly of gas, but I had poured 1/2 can of seafoam down it about 200 miles ago(changed oil already). Maybe it's remnants of that, or it's open valves? The springs and everything looks very clean to my eyes, but I don;t know what to look for. I'll torque the bolts, but the rest is all new to me. Spin PR? Rockers land right? How do I check the passages?

chad":1nmfuf82 said:
I C no 'gunk'.
It's in a different shot. I'll upload later. But it's not much.

chad":1nmfuf82 said:
Lesson seeking? run it w/ vc off for 20 sec. What can happen? Oil all over? possibly, possibly U will C the path way to learn a lill...not interested? ahhh, no sense of adventure...
:eek:

I'm all for adventure!! I'll make a video and share, just for the halibut. I understand the concept of everything happening but, in true academic fashion, I've never seen it in action. This also means I don't know what is considered abnormal, loose, ratty, or irregular. If it's not obviously wrong, I'll miss it.

But I'll still screw with and see what happens. Ahhh.. engineers... (relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/242/)
 
Howdy Doc:

The rocker area looks quit clean. Good job on maintenance. While you have the cover off, I'd suggest that you do a cold start on your engine while watching for how long it takes for oil to reach the number 1 rocker. When the rocker arm shaft gets gunked up it slows the transfer of oil to the front rockers. Since the rest looks clean of gunk, I'm guessing the inside of the rocker shaft got a good cleaning when it was rebuilt, but it won't hurt to check.

FYI- oil is transferred from the rear rocker arm stand to the rocker arms. The front rockers are the last to get oil on start up.

Good luck.

adios, David
 
Before you reinstall the cover check the mating flange to make sure it's true especially around he bolt holes.
 
"...check the mating flange..."
on a true flat surface like a piece of glass?
 
JackFish":1fpr2g8u said:
Before you reinstall the cover check the mating flange to make sure it's true especially around he bolt holes.

I have a leak somewhere on the valve cover seal. I was hoping it's just the cork is hardened over time. PO seemes to have installed with RTV between the cover and the gasket, I'll scrape it all off and check for true.

How true is good enough?

Tks
 
While the valve cover is off take a look at the valve stem seals condition (i.e. Look at them Inside / through the valve springs). X2 get the valve cover flange straight! Over the years on many cars these valve cover bolts get over torqued / tightened so that that it can distort the valve covers mounting flange. It needs to be flat and true to seal well, then there isn't any need for a bunch of silicon. Looking at the old valve cover gasket condistion you can see some uneven surfaces were the gaskets crush patteren isn't right. Laying it on a flat or true steel plate to back it up and then gently working it back to be flat again is a good way. Good luck (y) :nod:
 
Thanks!, shall do.

Gasket = cork? I see VMF has strong opinions about rubber, but that on V8's

The replacement i have is cork, but I'm willing to look for a better one if it's out there.

Edit: I found it on Summit. Silicone gaskets for like 6 bucks.
 
Update and question.

So I finally started stripping the old cork gasket and scraping off the silicone from the valve cover. I've found that the silicone is thick on the outside edge of the gasket and thin at the inner edge. Therefore, the pressure of the cover on the gasket is inconsistent and the mating surface is the inner edge of the valve cover lip to the gasket.

Question: Should I try and make the mating surface flat? It's obvious the old gasket was leaking and it appears to be from the gasket-head surface. As the gasket cover surface was siliconed over, so it was watertight and not leaking...

So I guess the question should be how flat does it need to be? I also noticed the screws were veeeery easy to remove. The silicone gaskets are on the way, I have a cork one on hand. I think I'll strip it, clean it up and put on the cork gasket. Torque it down, wash the whole bay (which has years of grime and oil encrusted sludge) and see if I still have that slow leak. If I do, I'll install the silicone gasket. If not, I'll add em to my backup parts box.

Any thoughts from the experts?
 
The gasket surface of the valve cover flange should be very flat or it won't mater what kind of gasket you use. The areas with a heavy amount of solicone are a tipoff that the gasket surface isn't true, some pictures of those areas would be helpful. I use a Body Hammer and Dollie to straighten out these type of problem areas a good ball pean hammer and flat steel plate or some hard wood could also work.

Many people use the silicone on the valve cover flange with cork and other types of gaskets and what usally happens is the gasket will slide away its probally better to just use the silicon without a gasket in that case. This is the method I use on installing a new cork valve cover gasket, it works very well by glueing it down with Permatex Aviation Cement or Gasket Sench to the valve cover flange surface and set it aside waiting for it to cure good a few hours or even overnight. When you install you can use a thin amount of solicone to the bottom of the gasket or on the head surface, this will allow you to remove the valve from two to three times without damaging the gasket. Then install valve cover bolting it down to the proper bolt torque (i think this is 2 to 4 Ft. LB's.). If you wanted to you could also warm up the engine and retorque all the head bolts before the valve cover gets reinstalled. Good luck (y) :nod:
 
How did the oil flow w/it off?
 
chad":1u0r9qsg said:
How did the oil flow w/it off?
I haven't run it yet. I plan to this weekend.

I torqued all the bolts. I messed up the rod torque, but I think it'll be OK. I didn't double check before starting and thought it was 40lbs so I started with 30. They all were under 30. So then i thought I must be wrong and sure enough spec is 21-26. So I loosened them all and re-torqued to 23.

Head bolts spec is 70-75 so I did a pass at 60 then a second pass to 73. They all turned about 10-20 degrees on thr second pass.

This is supposed to be done cold, right?

I finished cleaning the silicone off the cover and next I'll have to flatten it. It's a bit wonky. I ended up scraping off the thick silicone with a screwdriver and the thin film with a steel brush from HF. I have a lightly roughened surface now since I steel brushed it. Should i go over it with 100 grit and smooth it out?

I had a peek at the rubber thingies in the valve springs and they look brand new. I'm thinking this engine was rebuilt not too many miles ago. It's too clean =)
 
Update:

So I tried to figure out how long it takes the oil to make its way forward, but I failed. I was expecting the oil to come out of the end of the shaft thingy, over cyl 1. I ran for 1 minute with the cover off. Then, when nothing came out, I shut it off and noticed there was oil coming out of the pinhole of the rocker (hammer/lever thingy?). So, starved it isn't I guess.

I hammered up the mating surface as true as I could, using a block of wood as a forgiving surface to pound on. I put the cork gasket in dry, no sealant on either side, and tightened the cover. My torque wrench starts at 10 ft/lb, so I couldn't torque to max 4ft/lbs per say. So I did it with a short ratchet and hand snug. Lord only knows what that is. Hopefully less than 4?

I took her for a highway run of about 20 mins and dropped a piece of cardboard underneath to see if she drips.
Fingers crossed!
 
I do not see a shaft thingy at #1 and I cannot see what is at #5...They quit putting them on a some point, and you may be at that.
A real gauge would be nice.
If oil is dripping off each rocker on to the valve and to pushrod, at an elevated idle then I would say you are good.
 
So I googled anatomy of a cylinder head :roll:
I meant rocker shaft. I was expecting oil to come out of the end of the rocker shaft.
But it came outta the rocker arm, so I didn't time how long it took.

Anywho, all's well I think. Except my issue of low oil pressure at idle. I started a new thread on it. I'm afraid I might need to drop the pan and clean the filter. :banghead:
 
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