[T3] Valve. Covers..

[Jim Adney]

On 31 Oct 2011 at 23:28, Dave Hall wrote:

> In over 40 years of doing rocker cover gaskets on my air-cooled VWs, I've
> had just one leak, and that was a thin all cork one on a '61 Bug engine that
> had the funny extra shape on the top, and that's the bit that went inside.
> Using a gasket that isn't already crushed, either new or recovered with
> boiling water, works every time.  

I have several of what I consider to be the old style cork gaskets 
that are undersized, but I've never tried boiling them. I keep 
meaning to, but I have to find a time when Melissa's gone and won't 
see me using her frying pan. I think Russ taught us this trick and it 
completely explains the undersized gaskets that always seem to come 
in the gasket sets.

> If it doesn't, something's distorted, damaged or not clamping
> properly. 

I had a leaky gasket caused by a bail that I distorted by trying to 
pry it up rather than down. I had another one that worked its way up 
at the bottom, but that might have been with the same bail. I made 
that mistake with the bail in about 1971, when I was still very much 
a newbe around VWs.

> I guess you can modify rocker covers, glue gaskets in place and do a host of
> other things, but the VW engineers don't seem to have felt the need.

Didn't VW add the tabs on the Type 4 rocker covers? And they changed 
Type 1 & 3 rocker covers, adding an indent on the top center sometime 
in the late 60s or early 70s. Anyone know when this happened?

-- 
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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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