I cannot believe how much I am struggling with what should be a straightforward replacement of my slightly leaking valve cover gasket on my 1996 Escort 1.9 liter.
In hindsight now, with one of the mounting bolts quite loose when removing the cover, I should have tried keeping the gasket, which came off pretty cleanly, cleaned things up, reinstalled the cover, and kept an eye on it, but I tore off the gasket pretty quickly and cleaned up the cover stupidly thinking that a replacement part would be available.
Little did I know that the gasket only comes molded in as part of a new valve cover ($300), that neither Ford nor anyone else I can find has an equivalent replacement gasket, and as a result a groove is left in the cover that seems sure to leak if something is not done about it.
I have only found a Felpro gasket whose technical line recommends filling that groove with a silcone product first. I have tried Ultra Black a couple of times as I thought that is what the tech line recommended, but it seems horrible for this specific task, being pretty thick, leaving holes and gaps in the groove, not drying even after a couple of days, and additional frustrations. Perhaps there is a trick to it I am not aware of.
This should only be a two-hour job even for me and my car has been half apart for more than a week now because of this dumb problem. Any advice about different parts and/or procedures that I could use to get my car back together would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance very much.
In hindsight now, with one of the mounting bolts quite loose when removing the cover, I should have tried keeping the gasket, which came off pretty cleanly, cleaned things up, reinstalled the cover, and kept an eye on it, but I tore off the gasket pretty quickly and cleaned up the cover stupidly thinking that a replacement part would be available.
Little did I know that the gasket only comes molded in as part of a new valve cover ($300), that neither Ford nor anyone else I can find has an equivalent replacement gasket, and as a result a groove is left in the cover that seems sure to leak if something is not done about it.
I have only found a Felpro gasket whose technical line recommends filling that groove with a silcone product first. I have tried Ultra Black a couple of times as I thought that is what the tech line recommended, but it seems horrible for this specific task, being pretty thick, leaving holes and gaps in the groove, not drying even after a couple of days, and additional frustrations. Perhaps there is a trick to it I am not aware of.
This should only be a two-hour job even for me and my car has been half apart for more than a week now because of this dumb problem. Any advice about different parts and/or procedures that I could use to get my car back together would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance very much.
Mar 3, 2008 at 11:12 PM
