So now that you’ve seen the Benz running, you may be wondering how I got that far. Well, it’s been a bit of a mad rush of figuring out what’s broken, ordering parts, finding out what fits and what gets sent back, and then finding what else I need to or should replace. After all, the Hot Rod Power Tour is a bit out of the neighborhood and I definitely don’t want to break down on the way.
The first thing I saw after getting the car home, was that the valve cover gasket had a leak. The previous owner had mentioned that the top end had been rebuilt. Unfortunately, the valve cover is only held on by 3 bolts, and the gasket fits on the valve cover and sits flush with the head before you tighten it down.
There shouldn’t be a whole lot of pressure in there pushing out against the gasket, but only having 3 bolts holding things down seems like a bad design to me. I purchased a new gasket, removed the aforementioned 3 bolts, and pulled the valve cover. I also noticed that there was a bit of build up around where the gasket seats on the valve cover itself.
Naturally, I went at it with a bit of brake cleaner and a shop sock. There are markings around the gasket area that indicate someone previously tried there hand at cleaning things up in a manner that was a bit less gentle. When I was happy with how shiny it was, I slapped the gasket back on and made sure everything lined up. As I don’t quite trust just those three bolts, Isaiah ran a bead of RTV around the head surface (which I also cleaned and cleared of oil) before I put the valve cover back. That should help make sure that any weak spots get filled in, or so I hope.
That’s all for this update, in the next one I’ll go over the work I did to get a working radio in and going. See you then!
Cars, Computers, & Random Thoughts