Hello enthusiasts, I just pulled my 1-4 valve cover to replace the valve cover gasket and dist base gasket and wouldn't you know it, I did not check on this forum concerning the type of sealant I shoud have used. I am hoping what I used will not give me any issues. Please advise. I used 'Ultra Copper' 700 degree rtv sealer. I used a very minimal amount and of course made sure to wipe all the surfaces down with acetone for a surgically clean area to lay sealant and gasket onto. I know many of you use loctite/permatex 518, but I did not look here prior to doing the job as it was rather spur of the moment.... I am thinking it will be sufficient, but it is the F-car we are talking about here and I am willing to do it again. thanks-john
I've successfully used 518, RTV, and Hylomar. I don't recommend RTV because it's so very easy to get wrong, and so many of the people looking for advice don't have enough experience to have a reasonable chance of getting it right. As long as it's used very very sparingly, the weather is cool & dry, and you work quickly RTV can be used. The biggest problems with RTV are: 1) In warm, especially humid weather, it tends to skin over very quickly, and doesn't seal well once the skin forms. 2) It makes gaskets and oil seals slipperier than a greased pig, making it very hard to keep them in position while assembling everything. Biggest problem areas on the 2V engines are: a)the ends of the gaskets that butt up against the bottom of the oil seals. A little too much RTV & they slip out of position & you have a leak there. If you can see more than a 1/6" bead of RTV squeezed out in that area, then there's some chance that the gasket has moved. b) Oil seals will slip out of position, either coming too far forward, or else getting cocked a bit sideways. There have been many people reporting this problem. 3) If it gets overused, long beads can peel off inside the engine and find places to block oil flow. If you don't see any signs of the above problems, and you don't have any oil leaks, then you did it just right & shouldn't have any problems. Permatex Hylomar with a matchead dab of RTV where the gasket buts against the seal is my current preference. The only drawback to using it is that it cold flows, so you have to go back & re-torque the cam cover nuts after a few hours, and again after a day or so. If you don't retorque, you'll probably have leaks. I've not had good luck with the Valco Hylomar on big gasketed areas like the cam covers, it has a solvent that evaporates pretty quickly & lets it skin over. Once skinned over, if it's not perfectly smooth, it may not seal well. It's not very forgiving, and a PITA to clean up. Seems to work well as long as you can paint it on & quickly assemble something tho. BTW, Valco seems to be the original Hylomar formula developed by Rolls Royce Aviation & used by Jaguar. 518 used sparingly also does a great job, but it does harden, so takes a bit of scraping to remove the next time you pull the cam covers. Sometime I'd like to try doing a 2V engine with just 518, no gaskets. My suspicion is that it would work just fine. I've seen a many well sealed cam covers where the only sealant was the pinhead dab of RTV, and the red sealant that comes on the good turquoise colored gaskets. The cheaper black gaskets don't seem to work very well w/o a sealant.
great reply, thanks much. After reviewing what you have noticed, I think I am going to be okay. Again, I used it very sparingly and very quickly. I will report any issues after a couple hundred miles.
