Group,
I have a 1974 MGB. Car has had a bad oil leak from the front tappet
cover
since I bought it. I sealed the valve cover vent and left the tappet cover
vent hooked to the carbs to pull a vacuum in the crankcase. This slowed the
leak by about 80 percent.
This weekend, I finally removed the intake & exhaust manifolds and
replaced
the cover gasket (with new rubber gasket). Cover was fine and mounting
surface was fine. Cleaned both with BrakeKleen. I installed the cover with
new gasket (gasket coated with silicone sealer) and found I could not tighten
the bolt very much because the gasket would pop out from under the cover. So
I removed all the silicone sealer, an installed the cover and gasket with no
sealer. Tightened the cover bolt enough to see the rubber gasket compress
(maybe one third compressed). Using a mirror, I checked all around the gasket
to make sure none of the gasket had moved - it was fine.
After installation (car was idling) I removed the hoses from the cover
to the
carb (venting the crankcase to atmosphere). I did this because I've been
trying to fix a chronic high idle problem. After idling for no more than five
minutes, the front tappet cover gasket leaked enough oil to produce a six inch
diameter spot on the driveway !!!!!!
Help !! Is this typical ??? Or what did I do wrong ??? I'm ready to
get &
install a cover from an older car that has the gasket channel - this is my
plan unless you guys can tell me what I did wrong. I'm absolutely not going
to do this job three times :-)
Thanks, Skip
Stock '74 MGB (early)
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