The V8 Owners Forum -

I have to put in a new valley cover gasket.

When I test fitted the manifold without the gasket all bolted up easily - everything went in finger tight - no issues.

So I put in the brand new tin gasket and bolted it down at ether end - however all the bolt holes in the head were all half covered over. In trying to get the gasket to fit I completely wrecked it - it just would not fit there is no way the holes were ever going to align with the bolt holes and the gasket was covering part of the inlet ports on the heads.

Having wrecked the new gasket I then got the old well used one back out - with use I could see that the bolt holes had been elogated towards the centre - putting this tin gasket on and bolting it down the other bolt holes were not too bad but the gasket still blocked a few of the holes. As it had been on the engine with a different manifold I thought this would fit OK.

Well no - with the manifold on top I was able to get most of the bolts in but unfortunately on two of them the tin gasket forced the bolt to go in at the wrong angle and the first few thread got cross threaded before I realised what was going on so rather than persist I pulled the lot out.

So I will get a new tin gasket and a 3/8" tap to retap the cross threaded holes. I will then test fit the manifold and new gasket and where required elongate the holes in the tin gasket to sort of resemble the worn areas of the old gasket.

So before I try this all again are there an any tips for installing these wretched valley cover gaskets.

Thanks

Garry

Have your heads or block been skimmed significantly or are you using tin HEAD gaskets with heads that were designed for composite gaskets?

Yes the heads and block have been skimmed - hence my test fit of the actual manifold which went on with no issues - it is just the valley cover gasket.

The block and heads are off a 4.0 Thor and have composite gaskets fitted.

cheers

Garry

The actual manifold deliberately got oversized holes to allow for the pulling down in the V.
I have heard of cases where they split the gasket along the centre of the valley and riveted a seals strip along the joint.

You may just been unlucky and got a badly punched gasket.

I bought one from a local Land Rover specialist. The black type. It didn't line up on my bog standard 3.5. The cut-outs for the ports were all over the place
Offer it up so they were correct for some - out on others.
Bought a genuine spare from my local Land Rover main dealer at vast cost. But at least that was made properly.

I've had the same problem with mine, the heads have been over skimmed and the ports don't line up well.

What I did last time was to miss out the rubber end seals, then use a run of RTV silicone, not too much as you don't want it floating around loose in your engine, blocking things.

The put on the end clamps and tighten these first, then put the manifold on and tighten those bolts.

Never leaked.

And you will be surprised how much length this saves, and how much better the ports and gasket line up.

Yours might be different, but give it a go dry.

regards

scott

Well it is on. The elongated holes did the trick but I think I over did it a bit.

What I did this time - elongated the holes - really no more than about .5mm to 1mm would be enough.

I sat the tin gasket in place and put in all the bolts about half way in to hold it in place - I then screwed down the two end caps which pulled the gasket down - making sure the gasket was sitting over inlet manifold correctly - happy with the alignment, I then bolted down the end caps tight - with the bolts still in the heads this locates the gasket in the correct place for when the whole lot is screwed in.

I then removed the bolts - greased them with lithium grease and put the manifold on - I then put in the bolts that would go in easily, but not tightened then up. With the bolts that were difficult a few rubber mallet hits to the top and side of the manifold moved it into the right spot and with all bolts in but not tightened.

I then put the endoscope down the inlet holes and while the tin gasket was not perfect all was OK. I then tightened all the bolts and put the endoscope down again - all OK but some of the sealant had squished out in the inlet area - while it was still liquid I got a oxy welding wire with some cloth material on the end and poked it down and cleaned out the squished sealant.

I will not go looking for the washer in the sump at this stage - from experience I know that any sealant (I use the orange stuff so I can see it) that squished out inside the engine will find its way down to the sump and get caught by the oil strainer - it can block this. So when the engine is running again I will keep my eye on the oil pressure until it it time to drop the running in oil - I will then drop the sump looking for the washer and clean out the strainer.

So all good now - thanks for all your input and advice - greatly appreciated.

20170710_120256 by Garry Collins, on Flickr

Garry