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Just did the lower rocker cover seals

Thanks for sharing Lee, it's great to see more and more of us getting stuck into our cars. :thumb:
 
Hi

Very well done and thanks of taking the time to do a write up.

Berni
 
Ditto to what has already been said.

I have to do this job next on my car too.

I was told that the biggest problem on these is bolt heads shearing / going smooth and it's been putting me off.
 
Nice one Lee.

You say you only tightened the bolts to '7 ftlbs - i.e. not very much'.

Was this enough to pinch the inserts tight against the head? there seems to be two schools of though on this one. Some tighten until the inserts bite, where others tighten just enough to pinch the rubber gasket.
 
dommorton said:
Nice one Lee.

You say you only tightened the bolts to '7 ftlbs - i.e. not very much'.

Was this enough to pinch the inserts tight against the head? there seems to be two schools of though on this one. Some tighten until the inserts bite, where others tighten just enough to pinch the rubber gasket.

They way I see it is that you cannot torque them properly without the inserts mated with the heads, so I think they need to be tightened properly.

Tightening just enough to have the seals touch would be a bit random as you could not guarantee each bolt was tightened the same and in fact the bolts just would not be tight at all. The seal stands out of the cover a few mm so touches before the inserts seat. Clearly it's all been designed to be bolted down and the seal compresses just the right amount and equally all around. I guess over time it just looses it's effectiveness by being compressed. Similar problem on vw's

BTW, thanks for all the comments and I'd be glad to help anyone local do this job.

The bolts are M6 so I would only use a small 1/4" drive wrench to undo and tighten - mine is about 10cm long. The inner hex drive of most of the nuts was either rust or had been "got at" before - and stupidly put back in! New bolts are cheap as chips. I noticed that the replacement ones were heavily covered in yellow ? zinc ? so may be an upgrade to the originals. The are in an area open to abuse being near the rear wheel and exhaust.

Hopefully, I won't have to deal with this problem again under my ownership, although the top ones a weeping a tiny bit.

Lee
 
No surprise really, but I have more oil on the heat exchangers. I'm satisfied with the lower covers job, although I do agree that the covers are a poor design. When tightening the bolts I noticed that the aluminium inserts actually rotated in the plastic moulding once the washers on the bolts bit in - not impressed - if it rotates then it's not a perfect seal - I feel some billet ones are on the horizon.

The bottom of the top covers were wet in places, so I figured it was time to bite the bullet and do the job. Whilst I was in there I would also do the spark plugs. So here goes (I've spent 5 hours on one top cover so far!). To do this it is best to remove the side/lower tinware which involves:

1. Remove silencer: Undo the ball clamp and strap. Both these bolts had to be cut off with a hacksaw - stainless ones will go back on. With the bolts removed the silence would not budge - turned out to be a very snug fit into the cat ? so plenty of umph and a bit of wd40 on the joint and it came away. Now it won't clear the cat ? joint until you remove the heat shield on top - two rusty 10mm self tappers. Silencer off - will have fun cleaning it up and replacing with stainless bolts.

2. Remove tinware: Three M8 socket (allen) bolts hold it onto the head along with three M6 hex head set screws. Two are round the front of the engine on the corner of the tinware above the forward edge of the lower valve cover close to the subframe. They just about came undone ok phew, but the last M6 bolt which is past the rear edge of the lower valve cover was tight and snapped the captive nut off the other piece of rear tinware it attached two - drilled it out. The three M8 bolts were rusty and tight. With some care the middle and forward ones come out, but the rear which holds the silencer strap rounded internally - damn. Spend a couple of hours on this one - managed to drill through the washer behind the head, split it with a small chisel which released enough pressure on the bolt that with a well hammered in spline drive bit it came undone - wow.

Tinware loose and plug lead grommet push through + a bit of wiggling and the tinware was out.

Upper cover: with access not much easier I loosened the tight M6 socket screws that hold the upper cover on - they were tight but they all came undone. Some of them are still difficult to get to even with this amount of access. I doubt they have ever been off. A quick tap with a hammer shaft and the cover popped off. Initial impressions were of oil around the lower edge - I guess it's gravity, but it seemed that the lower edges of the three seals were particularly oily suggesting they were not sealing. They feel quite hard too, unlike the new lower one and in fact unlike the old lower one, which I guess had been replaced.

Going to collect new seals and bolts from OPC Wilsmlow tomorrow, then put it all back together.

Incidentally I also removed the heater blower to get more access to the upper cover.

Update to follow...

Lee
 

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Whilst you've got the silencers off nip round to Sports&Classic and have the bypass pipes fitted :thumb:
 
samba-lee said:
..... - not impressed - if it rotates then it's not a perfect seal - I feel some billet ones are on the horizon.

Hi Lee, nice work there. Just curious why you wanted to put OPC top covers on when you're view of the lower covers was less than 100%?

:dont know:

Are the billet ones very expensive?
 
Zingari said:
Whilst you've got the silencers off nip round to Sports&Classic and have the bypass pipes fitted :thumb:


:yes:
 
Drew said:
samba-lee said:
..... - not impressed - if it rotates then it's not a perfect seal - I feel some billet ones are on the horizon.

Hi Lee, nice work there. Just curious why you wanted to put OPC top covers on when you're view of the lower covers was less than 100%?

:dont know:

Are the billet ones very expensive?

Plenty of Rennlist posts suggest that the top covers are usually in a lot better condition than the lowers so I'm happy enough to stick with OEM and yes the bottoms are a bit pricey. In fact on reflection I think the covers are probably ok and I don't think the inserts spinning becomes a problem until the seals fail because each insert has a ring of seal around it. Of course time will tell, but the new seals are proud of the covers much more than the old ones. With the upper cover, the old seal was clearly hardened and not effective.

I've put the covers back on now with the new seals and bolts, and refitted the tinware. I've replaced all the plugs on this side of the car with new OEM one too - interestingly the top plugs were Beru and the bottom Bosch - another literally half-ar$ed service at some point in the past.

The silencer is literally only held on with two bolts and now I've got the old rusty ones off, it will be a 15 minute job on each side to remove the silencer in the future for a bypass job.

I'll get back to finishing the job tonight and give it a test over the weekend. Total labour time so far = 9 hours. But I suspect the other side will be much easier as there has been some learning time on this side.

Lee
 

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Excellent stuff Lee. :thumb:
 

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