A bit of work on a work night

Tonight I got home from work to find a new pushrod cover gasket sitting on my front porch. I had also picked up some carb cleaner and a new (properly-sized) fan belt on my way home, so I decided to do a bit of work.

I started by spraying down the pushrod cover with Permatex gasket remover. I let that soak in for 5 minutes or so, and then went at the cemented-on cork gasket with a putty knife and wire brush. A second round of this got it all off, followed by a thorough wipe-down with shop rags.

The new gasket was then coated on one side with "Hylomar" blue gasket dressing, and applied to the pushrod cover. This took up almost all of the remainder of the tube of Hylomar, so I had to switch to high-temp RTV silicone to stick the gasket to the block (it was about 9:30 pm and no auto parts stores were open, and I had to finish the install after putting on the gasket dressing). I carefully laid down a bead of the silicone around the gasket, making sure to keep the bead continuous and surrounding each bolt hole. Then I installed the cover using the original flathead screws with star washers. A very short (1") flatblade screwdriver assisted in tightening some of the screws where clearance was blocked by the starter or other accessories.

I then mounted the coil onto the head using its two bolts, lock washers, and blue threadlocker. The shop manual only called for about 10 foot-pounds, so I only used a normal 1/2" crescent wrench to tighten the bolts.

And this is the result of a decent evening's work:

I decided to leave off the road draft tube so that I can pull and re-seal the oil pan. The distributor is also left off so that I can use a long flatblade screwdriver on the end of a drill to prime the oil pump and get everything all good and lubricated before trying to start up the engine.