At 11:40 AM 8/20/99 -0700, Larry Colen wrote:
>A mechanic friend of mine reccomended a gasket material called "the right
stuff" for making headgaskets. It comes in an aerosol can and makes a
rubber (not silicone) gasket. I tried it last night and it works very
well. It's made by Permatex.
Huh? You used an aerosol to make a head gasket? I'm thinking you may be
speaking of the valve cover gasket here. Good guess? Or am I missing
something? I think you need a proper fabricated gasket between the head
and the block.
>There are two types of spin on oil filter adapters. One has the filter
pointing upwards, where it kind of gets in the way of working on the
distributor and the other has it pointing downwards where it kind of gets
in the way of pulling the starter. What are people's preferences on these?
I like them both, as either is way more convenient than the older fixed can
filters.
The hanging filter does get in the way of removing the starter, but I
change the oil filter and check the dipstick and adjust the distributor and
even do strange things with the generator considerably more often than I
pull the starter motor, so the hanging filter turns out to be less of a
maintainance problem. On the other hand, the hanging filter makes quite a
mess when you unscrew it for an oil change, dumping some oil down your arm
and on the side of the engine block and the oil pan flange. I've used both
types, and I find this oil spill of the hanging filter to be less of a
bother than the maintaince obstruction of the upright filter.
Now before you all get to cursing the oil spill of the upwards pointing
filter and the oil drainback thing, I have to say that I see neither of
those as much of a problem. The oil drainback is easily controlled by
using a filter with a good anti-drainback check valve. I like the NAPA
Gold 1068 oil filter for this reason (and for other reasons), never had a
startup oil pressure problem with this filter. But I always avoid the Fram
filters which seem often to have defective anti-drain valves.
And as for the oil spill when changing the upwards pointing filter, I find
this to be quite minimal. Before removing the filter use a small
screwdriver to punch two holes in the top end of the canister, one near the
center and another out near the edge (either side of the internal filter
element), and leave it a few minutes before you unscrew it. This allows
air into the canister so the oil can drain down intentionally before
removal. It's also rather convenient to write the date and mileage on the
top end of the new filter with a permanent ink marker.
$.02,
Barney Gaylord
1958 MGA with an attitude
http://www.ntsource.com/~barneymg
|