Valve Cover Gasket and Timing Belt

[Pete in NH]

Hi Dave,

Sounds lke you had a sucessful weekend. The weather up here in NH was perfect for working outdoors, hope you had the same wather. Did you do the timing belt as well? On the oil leak are you sure it's the cap? There is a plastic PCV valve box on the rear of the valve cover on the same side as the oil fill cap on the 84's and that box can be a leak spot as well. If it really is the cap the only thing I can think of is the valve cover surface is slightly deformed around the cap area for some reason. The gaskets on the caps can get hard with age and heat and eventually crack but you say it's a new cap.

[reliant84]

changed the cap and it stopped leaking. Torqued everything down to the specs that came with the gasket. Still leaking from the driver's side near the transmission. Thoughts.

[Pete in NH]

Hi Dave,

Inspect the cover area where you think it is still leaking. Is the cover and gasket fully seated? Also, Make sure the cover flange is level and perfectly flat, especially around the bolt holes. These valve covers were fairly thin sheet metal and were easily deformed, then the leaks start. Your car may also have spreader strips of metal that follow the front and back cover flanges and mount between the bolts and the cover, my 84 had them. They distribute the load evenly across the cover mounting flanges. If your car has them make sure you use them. My 86 reliant cover had badly deformed flanges from over tightening and cracks around one of the bolt holes. check carefully for cracks around the bolt holes. If there are cracks you'll never stop the leaking. I welded the cracks in my cover and carfully striaghtened the cover flanges, so far so good.These covers can be a pain, leak wise but with care can be leak free. My 84 went 200k with out valve cover leaks.

Good luck and let us know what you find.

[reliant84]

Well, the good news is that the leak was not from the valve cover. So changing it was successful. The bad news is that after de-greasing the engine to change the valve cover, i discovered that the head gasket was bad and worst of all, the rear main seal was blown. The car lost a quart of oil each trip. So, since this was my wife's daily driver, we decided to sell the car. We quickly sold it and made our money back. The car only had 56k on it and the people we purchased it from were 90yrs old. So, between cleaning the engine and since we were driving the car much more than they ever did, caused the gaskets and seals to fail. Next time I'll buy one as a third car and not use so much. But it was fun passing people on the interstate in it. They didn't know what to think.
Pete in NH, thanks so much for your help. I couldn't have changed the valve cover gasket without your advice and support.

[Pete in NH]

Hi Dave,

Well, sorry to hear in the end your K car experience didn't work out as you might have hoped it would. Good to hear the valve cover job did work though. Yes, low mileage old cars owned by older drivers can have many age related issues caused by lack of use. even though the mileage is often quite low thw lack of use can lead to many seals and gaskets drying out and failing. It's not uncommon on these cars to have to replace all the hoses, belts and other rubber type parts that are rotting with age.

I hope you will be back with another K car in the future that as you say is more of a third fun car. I still think K cars can be used as daily drivers but you really need to be a decent mechanic and stay on top of all the needs of an older car. If you have to pay someone to do all the work required it just can get too expensive to be practical.

[ARTTY]

Hello, reliant 84! artty here. Fellow club member and owner of an '87 reliant LE w/a 2.2 fuel injected motor. My timing belt is due for a change, also. I looked up the minimopar web site for timing belt info like you did, but the computer says the site is off line or such. Did the site change address or go completely offline? My e-mail is, artstrader20@ymail.com.thanx for any info! Mopar to ya!

[K-CAR_WAGON]

This link for the timing belt is currently working.

http://www.minimopar.net/enginetiming.html


And here is the homepage link.

http://www.minimopar.net/index.html

[ARTTY]

Thanks, KCAR_WAGON ! Question : is the "power loss" light supposed to light up while the engine is cranking over to start? It goes out as soon as the engine starts.

[K-CAR_WAGON]

I think it is supposed to go on momemtarily when you turn the key as part of a lamp test, and then go out. Check to see if you have any stored fault codes.