Got a pair of the Fel Pro rubber valve cover gaskets from Rock Auto. Going to replace the leaking cork gaskets on my 350. Do the rubber gaskets go on dry or do I need to put sealant on them? TIA
First make sure your flanges and bolt hole areas are flat. I glue them to the valve covers and wipe a little oil on them. Do not over tighten and distort the flange and you can remove/install over and over again without leaks
i use the felpro vs50034c. i don't like r's. i have poston v/c's. no leaks. can't remember the last time i changed them.
my pure rubber ones leaked on that 73 block i had in my 66. i went to cork with the that sealent stuff had a indian on it. held strong.
I read on this forum years ago that rubber gaskets don't work well with tin valve covers. Rubber gaskets require more clamping force than cork and the tin covers will distort. The rubbers are for aluminum covers and cork for tin. I switched back to cork and haven't had an issue. I also put them on dry.
I have the rubber ones on my TA aluminum covers, been on and off about 200 times in 20 years. Use cork on steel like Joe said
Thanks Larry - Sounds like this would work better than the new TA rubber gasket on factory covers, correct?
No, the TA gaskets will work way better as long as you have iron heads. They won't work on aluminum heads and factory covers.
Those TA gaskets are cool and I'm happy they made them for the BBB, but beware- that style of gasket has very little compression. If your tin covers aren't nearly perfectly flat they will leak like a sieve, more so than a cork gasket..
Congrats. When I showed up with them for my Edelbrock heads/TA Performance Aluminum valve covers, the engine shop said order cork, those are gonna leak. I didnt believe them. Didn't make it through cam break in on the dyno before oil was coming out both sides. I couldn't believe it, checked and retightened, rechecked, retightened, could never get them to seal up. Put felpro cork gaskets on, hasn't leaked a drop in 5 years and the covers have been off and on multiple times. Those rubber gaskets are now in a land fill somewhere.
They will now. Just ask TA to make the bevel cut to the intake side of each head to eliminate the obstruction to the factory valve covers. Or your machine shop can do it. My chrome valve covers will fit my TA Stage 1 heads with their gasket.
I wonder if the Edelbrock heads are different in that regard. Like Joe said, there is very little compression with those gaskets. I'm glad the guy that sells the Poston covers checks every one of them for flatness. I asked him about that when I ordered them because that was an issue with them back in the day. Glad your covers seal, I hate valve cover leaks.
I believe JW found that the tin covers will not compress the TA gasket enough, even on iron heads. The bevel was not the issue. And with the cork you needed to glue the top and seal the bottom with RTV. Like JW did with Larry's that you needed a hammer to get off!
No, I had spacer plates because of the roller rockers. The whole thing needed to be glued together to not leak. I wanted to be able to remove the covers. I tried everything, but in the end, the Poston Covers and TA gaskets got me what I wanted. The first time I went to remove the covers for the Johnson Lifter change, I had to hit them with a rubber mallet multiple times to break that "right stuff" seal.
