Gaskets

[Veronica]

Im sure that most of you are already aware....but Im slower so thought that I might share this gasket stuff for any others who are not.

So this year blew a HG on my Aries. Had the HG done a mere 5 years ago at a shop.
So 5 years was not sufficient for my needs, after decades of driving: have never seen HGs go that fast. We did some home work on All-Par and went with the thicker Mopar performance HG and it is truly much thicker than what the shop had put on there.

But we had hell getting the valve cover sealed and on the second try actually overtightened the darn valve cover. The new Fail-Pro corks are uber thin, like a third of the thickness of the one that I was taking off from 5 years ago. So a couple of Fail-Pro VS 50502 Cs later and I was fed up. We had to straighten out the stress spots and ordered spreader hold downs for the VC and went looking for a better solution for the gasket. Could not find a performance solution anywhere, Moroso, Cometic, Mr Gasket. Actually we could buy a roll of Mr Gasket material and make one but I was a bit annoyed. Then we talked to Pep Boys who suggested the FelPro VS 50502 T a valve cover gasket with metal rails coated in silicone. It looks nice and so far has finally been leak free. I am done with cork, period. I swore by them for many years, but this was the last straw.

[gardog]

The silicone covered metal rail gasket lasted about 2 weeks for my car and so after many different tries. I went to ACE hardware and bought a weather seal for a door and used it with RTV Blue. It lasted about a month and is leaking but not as bad at the ones before. Now its only leaking a quart a month. I am still like WTH? RIght, maybe i need to weld it! I have dont gaskets before and I cant get past this leak I have. Just some extra info. Here is the steps I take I clean everything with alcohol. let it evaporate and then i put a thin layer of blue RTV on all surfaces and let it sit til tacky and then bolt it all together tightening in a cross patter for even distribution of torque. Thats about it, oh I even let it sit until usually about 12 hours and then start or use the vehicle. I have never had issues like this until the past 5 to 6 years and I drive a 88 plymouth reliant 2.5 liter stationwagon. Okay I shut up.

[Pete in NH]

Hi,

I've had good luck with the Fel-Pro VS50205T Perma Seal gasket. It's been on three years and no leaks. The cork gasket set is useful only for the rubber cam tower strips, the cork itself is useless. The stamped steel valve covers are very easy to bend and distort when tightening the bolts and most of the covers you see are distorted around the bolt holes from over tightening and they will leak. The factory used RTV and it works well if all the mating surfaces are oil free and you again do not over tighten things, distort the cover and squeeze all the RTV out. The Perma Seal gasket is a lot less messy to install. And, yes, it's a good idea to let the RTV cure for several hours before running the engine.

When I first got my car the valve cover had been so badly over tightened, the cover was actually cracked around some of the bolt holts and needed to be welded up and ground down to repair. It's been fine since as it is now straight and crack free.