Rocker cover gasket glue?

Willy Eckerslyke

Well-Known Member
What do you recommend for sticking the rocker cover gasket to the rocker cover?

6 months ago I treated my engine to one of Wins' 'improved' rubber rocker cover gaskets, and fitted it with a smear of Blue Hylomar. I was very unimpressed with the fit which took a couple of goes to get it in place. A month later the engine bay was sprayed with oil after the rubber slipped out of place. On removing it, I found it had perished to the extent that it was splitting apart so threw it in the bin in disgust and returned to a proper cork seal, again smeared with Blue Hylomar.
This morning I've again found the engine bay sprayed with oil. It looks as if it's coming from the front corner where the gasket has slipped inwards. :roll:
 
I've never used gasket sealant yet on the rocker cover, and never had a problem with it sealing.
 
I'd never had a problem before this engine either, though I did always use Blue Hylomar. Hmm...
I wonder if there's something preventing the rocker cover from sitting correctly, better check this evening.
 
Tom from Lake View founds some kind of sealant on the gaskets of a V8 engine that arrived recently and he said that it was a bodge. Hope this helps.
 
Have you used one of the Neoprene gaskets that are now being stocked by the usual suspects? I've had one and they are superb - far better than the cork type. Only issue is they deform to shape to maintain the seal so aren't infinitely reusable. Will still stand more remove/refit cycles than a cork one though, and not much price difference.

As for sealant, I have recently learned the joys of Stagg Wellseal - developed for Rolls Royce and far far far superior to Hylomar. Could genuinely keep nuclear waste at bay. Not as easy to remove or clean though so probably more suitable for the P6 sump than cam cover.
 
The first one was "Rocker cover gasket 2000/2200 (much improved in rubber)" from Wins. So not neoprene. And it was frankly rubbish. Profile was too wide along the side by the carbs, and overall it was slightly too large so a very hard to get into place. And then I found that it had started to disintegrate after a month or so of use. Luckily I caught it before it filled the engine with shreds of loose rubber. It was at least double the price of a cork one. I should have complained but threw it away instead.
The cork one I replaced it with looked normal, I didn't notice any odd sealant on it. But I bought 2 at the same time so will check the 2nd one thoroughly before fitting it tonight. Actually, I may as well clean up and fit a spare rocker cover too in case the old one is deformed.

All food for thought, so thanks.
 
suffolkpete said:
It's not being blown out by excessive crankcase pressure is it? Are the breathers ok?
Good point thanks, I'd better recheck. They were OK. It looks as if the gasket has popped inwards rather than out but I'll know that for sure when I take it off.
 
I always use a smear of blue Hylomar to stick it to the cam cover, let it settle for a while, and then bolt the cover on. I never had problems with the cork gaskets, but i try to be careful not to overtighten the cover as this will displace a newly fitted cork gasket. Subsequent removal - refitting of the cover at a later date caused no problems, but i tend to tighten a little more to compensate for the slightly compressed gasket.

It is very common to see remanufactured rubber parts to disintegrate within months, and this covers almost everything from fuel and coolant hoses, to bonnet buffers, and various gaiters. I guess that the individual who places the order for a batch of remanufactured rubber parts has no way to verify the quality of the material used, so it falls to the retail customer to find out in the end.
 
Thanks everyone for the words of encouragement. Turned out to be a simple issue - I hadn't tightened down the rocker cover enough being mindful of the stories of split camshaft bearing caps. Also, the front bolt was missing a washer or two so wasn't nipping the gasket down properly.
I cleaned it all up as much as I could be bothered, then fitted the gasket with a smear of Hylomar to the cylinder head mating surface rather than the rocker cover. It does now look to be very positively positioned so will hopefully stay that way.

While I was at it, I replaced the servo vacuum hose which was looking rather perished. I'd been sorting the garage out over the weekend and had found a length of new vacuum pipe which was handy.
 
Properly done, the cork gasket (the only one worth getting is the composite one with a foil inner layer and a dark gray coating) works fine. It is meant to be glued to the rocker cover with rubber adhesive. 3M Super weatherstrip adhesive is a good choice.

I use the same glue with the rubber gaskets.

Recently I've started using a red silicone gasket, a fellow on eBay is selling them for many cars. The gasket has a near square profile, and must be glued to a absolutely clean rocker cover with RTV silicone and allowed to cure for a day or so. So far the performance has been excellent. And because it doesn't have the wide part on the carb side, it is much easier to get the cover on and off.

Yours
Vern
 
Hi Willy

Can't find the listings now on eBay. Thinking about it, I bought them about 3 years ago now (how time flies) so maybe he has gone out of business. I'll keep looking though.

Yours
Vern
 
I use 3M's spray77 glue on the gasket. Mount it to the (cleaned) valve cover and lower onto the head. Never had a problem with leaks and makes assembly very easy. If you ever need to replace the gasket in the future any residue wipes off with a little petrol.
 
That spray glue sounds like useful stuff, thanks.
It's now a couple of months on and the top of the engine has remained nice and oil tight.
 
I seem to be replacing my rocker cover gasket about every 6 months to a year, the neoprene ones are useless, I got mine from Classe Parts, soon started to leak. I won't buy the rubber-type again. I have bought the cork gaskets from everyone, and they are all the same and fail quite quickly, I did the last one in November, so, 7 months, I have fitted the cork dry, with grease, with well-seal, it makes no difference, they all fail. I am seriously thinking of using some sticky stuff and mounting metal-to-metal!

My car is 1965 so it does not have a sealed crankcase, it breathes to the atmosphere, so there are no issues with pressure build-up. The failure tends to mostly be on the front edge, the left hand corner being the most vulnerable, the rear corner fail, rarely along the lengths.

What seems to be happening, when reviewing the condition of the gasket, is that this seems to move and thus breaks the seal. I wonder if the problem is due to excessive heat, the expansion & contraction of the aluminium may start to behave like a pump and the continual cycle eventually causes the failure. My car is a daily driver and I suspect those that say they never have had a problem are either using an old gasket or do very little mileage. The excess heat is probably as a result of unleaded fuels burning much hotter than the old stuff and possibly, inferior cork - when I had my first P6 in the 1980's, I rarely replaced the cork, they were always re-used, can't do that now.

I have just taken the old gasket off, November 2016 to May 2017 - RIP, as I noticed this morning it was just starting to leak. The gasket had split in two places on the front ns corner, not quite the full width, but sufficient to allow oil to start weeping out.

Fed up with keep spending out on something that should be more effective!
 
Cork gaskets are a waste of time. The OE semi-rubberised (whatever they were made of) ones used to sit in the correct place on the head and didn't leak until the rubbers on the studs got really compressed, trouble is you won't get original ones now unless you are very lucky, and they'd probably have degraded by now anyway.
 
I 've never had problems with cork rocker cover gaskets, even when i used to cover 20K miles per year come rain or shine. That said, it was critical how i fitted them first time, but once they settled, they even standed a few removals / refittings of the rocker cover without problems.
I admit though that it is easy to overtighten the rocker cover bolts and squeeze the gasket out of its position.
 
The OEM were thin cork on either side of a thin foil layer, then coated in something like a rubber paint. They worked OK, but needed to be glued to the cover if you were expecting to reuse it down the road.

Yours
Vern
 
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