Rocker Cover Gasket Seal

It's a very easy replacement to do. Basically und the two top nuts holding the cover down, detach any cables which might prevent removel of the cover and it comes away in your hand.

Carefully clean the gasket faces on the cover and on the head where the gasket fitted to remove any old gasket material, paying particular attention to not let any old gasket material fall into the exposed head where it can get carried into the engine.

fitting is the reversal of removal, except you might  spend a good few minutes trying to get the new gasket to locate in just the right place. Sometimes I put a couple of tiny drops of superglue on gaskets to locate them before final fitting to hold them in position. Then again, you sometimes get a gasket which hasn't deformed at all and fits perfectly without needing any fiddling, but more often than not the long side runs of material warp , twist or bend during storage.

There's no reason to worry about disturbing the head gasket when all you need to replace is the rocker gasket.

 

Posted: Jul 21, 2006 11:48 AM

engine stud bars

when rencentlyreplacing the oil seals on my engine valves i forgot to check the valve clearences. so i let it cool, removed the rocker cover andand had a look. i did not hear any nasty noisesand the rockers assembaly wasn't fidddled with so i think i got away with that. but when i went to replace the rocker cover i snapped of the head of the right hand stud bar. are there any ways of fitting a replacement stud bar at home, would it need to be sent to a professional,or have i just completly written off the header?

Posted: Dec 04, 2009 02:40 PM

Oil blow out and lack or power

Hi everyone, 1st time on here so here goes, took mini out to a meet last night, all good, on way home running at 70 mph on open road and then started to have lack of power like fuel was running out, slowed down to 30/5 and cleared it, but noticed lack of poet over 3k revs. Got it home at low speed as 1 min away, popped bonet and oil is all over pully fan thermostat underside of car, oil looked ok in rocker cover. I do reg checks on oil valves timing mixture dash pot etc..... Don't know if it's oil seal or head gasket??? How do I start? Many thanks aaron

Posted: Sep 06, 2012 06:53 AM

My first Mini

i can get 50mpg out of my 1275 carb, there gd little things for nipping thru traffic, and parts are generally very cheap so if work needs doing its just the labour ur really paying 4, which if u do urself is really cheap. just cheak for rust as mini's are prone to it and is quite expensive to get sorted out properly. wings are prone to it, a pannels too, bottom of door skins, sills if not oiled inside often rust, and on l8er cars they often rust under window seal. rust free minis are normally expensive(£1500) plus. u can find people selling gd cars cheaper tho so look around private adds, always take for testdrive to make sure gearbox doesnt grate, and see if car runs fairly straight with ur hands off the wheel, dont crash tho. cheak under rocker cover for milky deposits. o and lift carpits see there is no holes.

 

Posted: Jan 19, 2007 09:14 PM

smokey engine

just had head converted to run on unleaded on my 67 998 cooper new valve seats valve guides and stem seals put back together but now the engine smokes very bad, it used to smoke a bit before but i thourght by having the head done it would cure it, also i run the car up the road for about 10 mins and took the rocker cap off and there seems to be a build up mayonnaise in the rocker cover in that short time,all the breather have been cleaned .any thoughts???

Posted: Mar 06, 2006 08:31 PM

re

Thanks for reply, yes it's an A-series, not sure what you mean by breathers in sump. Do you mean from the tappet covers as that the only breather l do not have as my block does not have them. Should also mention there is a breather from the timing cover on  top of a large one from the rocker and transfer gear housing.

Guess l will find out this weekend if putting in minimum oil does the trick.

J.

 

Posted: Jan 28, 2009 07:34 PM

998 Compression

Worn exhaust valve guides would allow exhaust gases to be pumped up to the rocker cover and into the case....if the exhausts are that worn the inlets won't be much better and they could be drawing oil from the rocker area down into the cylinders in the induction stroke.

The best valve stem oil seals I've come across are the ones which look like a rubber boot with a spring tension ring inside...the rubber o ring always seemed to me to be just an oil wiper.

 

Posted: Jun 30, 2006 04:05 PM

HS4 Choke Linkage.....

Thanks both!

Managed to sort the problem without removing the carb, just the air filter assembly.

Had a fair bit of jet screwing to do.... and bizarrely, I had to screw it in... when theoretically, it should be too lean by changing positions!

It has always ticked over rough since the new engine (and correct ABP needle)..... and the plugs were well black.

Ran it up to temperature, and started to screw in the jet... and I could hear the idle rising, and getting smoother as it went in..... when I thought it to be about right, I reduced the idle, and it was still ticking over a lot smoother than previously. I think there is some fine tweaking still to be done, but that'll have to wait till I can get my mate over with his portable HC/CO meter, to do it properly.

Also, getting a lot of blue smoke on revving the engine..... hold the revs up high for a length of time, and no smoke... but rev it hard rapidly, and it belches smoke!. I can only assume it is because there are no "proper" valve stem seals (with it being an A as opposed to A+), and it is sucking oil down the guides on over run... dont tend to get that much smoke whilst on the road.

Next question..... MS advertise "proper" rubbers for the A+. will they fit the A? having held the old A+ 998 head up against the 1098 head with the rocker cover off, the tops of the stems appear to be the same, with a chamfered top of the guide.

What do you reckon? worth a gamble?

Cheers,

James 

 

Posted: Sep 14, 2006 07:29 PM