I had the fella that did the machine work on the motor advise me to try a gasket fix product (he warranties his work so I tried it) that doesn't work, so now I'm down to replacing the gaskets without a doubt, so some questions.

I tried taking the valve covers off, but I am a bit intimidated about what to do next

"As for R&R, I found that backing the valve lash adjusters all the way down and holding the lever followers up with cloths pins allowed me to remove the covers and replace the covers with no other special tools needed. "

1) I'm not sure what I'm doing here so please give me a clue, the term lever followers is unclear, The valve springs are pretty stout I really don't understand how a clothes pin could compress that??

2) If I back off the adjusters that would relieve the pressure on the valves that are not being compressed by the rocker/roller, but would I not need to compress the ones being lifted to relieve the pressure on the rocker roller before removal? What tool is used to do that? I guess this is the clothes pin thing, just not sure I see how that would be done.

3) I see there are "lifters"(? not sure what to call these) that go thru from the rocker rollers and press on the very bottom of the valve, are these retained such that when the rocker roller assembly is pulled from the engine, they won't fall in to the bottom of the oil pan on the motor when it is removed from the motor?

4) finally there is the matter of how to set the valve lash once the gasket is replaced, is the a clearance with a feeler gauge etc that must be set once the gasket is exchanged? How is that set? what clearance?

Thanks again for all the input
Best Regards
Bill

I think what your looking at ma be a rekuls bodied chassis, they have done a number of american chassis with aluminm bodies like this, you had photo of another car in your Biposto blog check out this link

http://www.rekluscars.com/carsforsale/cars_for.htm

Thanks so much for all the helpful response, sounds like I you should be able to handle this. I guess I'm lucky that the gasket blew, could have been metal. A couple additional questions based on the responses come to mind.

The machinist that did the engine was big on Permetex as a gasket sealer, the type that apparently stays soft, the comments here suggest this may not work well, too soft perhaps. I ordered gaskets from Max Merrit on thursday, should be here next week, what would be the perfered product to use for this, would like to hear what people think has lasted, sound like this can be a problem area in some cases.

Thanks for the pic Owen, I'm attaching one of my car, it seems to be where your saying and it sounds simple enough to adjust just pull the cap, loosen the jam, and CCW till the pressure is down below 55. I suppose a person would have to wait till the car is up to temp and idleing to see what minium pressure would be.

Greetings Forum users, I'm looking for some engine basics, I don't usually do my own work, so I'm need some details the experts here would know I'm sure

I just had a complete overhaul done on a standard 8, The all the moving parts redone as the car had a bad crank, so new crank, Main bearings, rods with inserts, cam reprofiled, crank ground, the list goes on.

Very expensive and time consuming, I picked it up from the mechanic and after about 5 miles driving it blew the gasket on the roller rocker cover, throwing oil around, I stopped and no damage lost about 2 quarts from the 8, had it towed, would have taken it back to the mechnaic but he's going to hospital and unavailable. The engine was "short blocked" by the machine shop, and engine accesories added by the mechanic. The machine shop made these gaskets.

I have some questions would appreciate some input from the experts on the forum.

- I only drove a few minutes so I couldn't observer things as closely as I'd have liked but the oil pressure seemed high 80 lbs when accelerating, my recollection is it never went much past 60lbs previously, could the oil pressure regulator be mis-adjusted or defective?

- What would the minium pressure be at idle and max be when accelarting the vehicle? How does one properly check/adjust this, I was told that the pressure has to be acceptable with the car at idle so thats a concern, don't know what it would normally be, seems too high.

It looks pretty straight forward to pull the valve covers and then pull the rocker assemblies, I talked to the mechanic he said a "valve lifter" may be needed to remove pressure from valves pushing down on the roller rockers.
Is this a tool that would be commonly available, not sure if this is what the proper name would be??

Would appreciate any suggestions from 320 straight experts out there.

Regards