Just got another note from a guy with cracked cam covers on a Twincam
(centre stud) asking me about how to make the covers seal without putting so
much
pressure on the nuts that you crack the admittedly weak cover.
Thought I'd post this as it bears repeating.
First, take the cracked cover and have a bead of weld run over the crack to
repair it.
Buy some Stat-o-seals - these are alloy washers with an O ring crimped into
it. While you are at it, buy a set of V12 Jaguar cam cover nuts - they are
identical to the original Twincam nuts, except for being chrome instead of
rather rough steel.
Cut some new gaskets from rubberised cork material. Glue them onto the cam
covers with contact cement.
Take a bunch of flat washers that fit over the cam cover studs. Stack just
enough on the centre stud so that the gasket will compress - in other words
stack them until the new cork gasket is just clear of the sealing area at the
outside of the cover and then remove one. This will give you enough pinch to
seal the oil in without being able to crush and crack the cover again.
The Stat-o-seals deal with the other problem - a big part of the cause of
cracked covers. The factory used copper washers that didn't seal very well - so
when the leaks started, people reefed down on the nuts, and ended up cracking
the covers. These seals work at much lower pressure and work much better
than the copper ever did and are all but invisible in place. Concours nuts
can
get out their paint brushes and turn the aluminum edge to copper colour if
they really need to.
Bill
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