Cam cover gasket replacement engine in situ

Doable but won't be fun. Access thru wheel well.

 

Yeah easy just parts. Hardest part is being clean. Try to use compressed air to blow off all the junk that can fall into the open head. Copy of Ferrari gaskets leak 100% of the time. The Ferrari gaskets with the red o-ring looking stuff on them is designed to be used without any sealant. I always cheat and use some non-rtv sealant. Remember to use a small dab of RTV at the interface to the cam seal area. The gaskets end there and do not seal without some RTV. You understand what I mean when you see it.

 

FBB - be careful with easy. Cam seal oring sticks and tears then much bigger issues. Has not happened to me but I know someone who it has.

 

Clearly I.D.'ed the problem. Was a contortionist on his own headers. Sounds reasonably competent to me for valve cover gasket.

 

Be sure to carefully fit the gasket before hand!! When you get the gaskets they must be carefully cut and fitted. Don't cut them too short or you will be buying another set.

Use the cam cover itself as a template for the trimming.

 

Very easy job. Do what Tom said. O rings at cam seal housing should not be a problem unless some bone head glued the valve cover to them. The o rings at plug wells are a little too small and need to be gently stretched to fit groove. Do them last thing, stretch gently and use a little silicone on them then install valve cover right away.

 

^^^^^ This, but I use Hylomar on the plug hole Orings
(What? I'm a Brit, cut me some slack!)

 

Interesting, Brian. I've personally felt those o-rings are too small (cross section) to make a proper seal. Interesting to see both you and the other Brian using sealant on them - makes sense.

I've thought about using a thicker o-ring and doing some testing...

 

And that is true but the OP might not know if a "bone head" worked on the car prior

 

They stand proud of the head so no greater section thickness required. Do not really think sealant is required except to hold them in place. Ferrari assembled them with silicone I am sure for the same reason.

On 360 the groove was deeper and a thicker O ring used.

 

And I'm sure that is true but I've got a few sets of these cam covers and flat they are not. With nothing pulling them down in the middle, I'm a bit concerned. I will be checking mine in great detail as I get back to the head rebuilding.

I'll also be bolting the covers to the head and dealing with this issue by putting them on my manual mill and cutting the surface
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The thickness of the end plate gasket is more then enough to seal without any excessive over thinking. I have never had one leak front there, if the cover gasket is installed correctly.

One word of advice however is the stud nut that is located under the plug well cover. If you have had water intrusion and it's bad enough, the stud can snap due to corrosion. Use caution when loosening.

 

And while that may be entirely true, the surfaces would be best to be on the same plane and given I have a shop, this is something very easy to correct without any "excessive over thinking"

Given the amount of work I'm putting into the car, it would be kind of silly to not address this when it will only take a couple hours and then it's done forever.

 

If there is a step there the covers have been mixed between heads. The covers are machined bolted to the head they go with. Are not interchangeable.

 

Those are the original covers as far as I know (unless some service facility mixed them with another car). One of them has been cracked (and repaired, but not to my liking) so I have procured another set but they are the ones with 10 or 11 plug cover screws. The originals are 4 plug cover screws. I'm still trying to locate a 4 plug cover screw replacement.

Regardless, it's an easy fix for me so I'm not too concerned about it

 

I no longer use any Ferrari O-rings. The source is providing just shy of "proud enough" for good seals almost universally. I don't even bother with them. Last mistake I made was using the Ferrari O-ring (it came with the kit) for the rear of the 550 water pump housing. You guessed it I had to take it off and and put a proper O-ring in there. Some techs are fixing the Ferrari o-rings by gooping with RTV a la the photos of the leaking cam cog bolts in a previous thread. The right O-ring solves the problem. I just got a bunch from McMaster in viton to replace any butyl Ferrari O-ring and all my head aches go away.

 

Carl, get yourself a Parker O-Ring design guide. Then you can measure the grooves and easily cross reference. I have a bunch of old school design guides and many of them can only be found in paper format on the shelves of nerds like me

 

REVIVAL: not sure I completely understand some of the earlier posts.

I have some oil in spark plug tubes 1 and 2 and plan on installing new o rings/cover gasket on bank 1.

-is there a better O ring to use than the Ferrari one?
-does the cover gasket go on dry, or should I use some type of specific sealant?
-any sealant for O rings, or anywhere else?

Most important, do I need to remove the air box/plenum?