Check these parts while doing maintenance 1. Valve cover baffles / retainer welds 2. Screw & nut on your oil cap

[Murdertalon]

Was doing maintenance to 2g's and 1 g's lately and noticed something I think is easily overlooked and can cause catastrophic failure.

1. The baffle welds? on stock valve covers can break off leaving a small chunk of metal to go blasting into your head and end up god knows where likely destroying an engine.
This was evident when inspecting a valve cover my buddy ordered I lifted it up looking at the under side and heard a rock hit the floor.. no big deal. Until I saw that it was actually a small piece of metal that broke free from the casting or little weld nubs on the stock valve cover that retain the baffles.

My jaw hit the floor. That would have ended up in the engine, and likely has on other peoples cars.


2. While changing my oil today I decided to check the oil cap - the screw and nut that hold the cap to the retainer clip part more specifically.. and the nut was loose. I dont know how much further I would have been able to drive until it vibrated loose into the head, but also not awesome. I have an aftermarket cap, but it has the same design as the stock cap. I crushed the nut in a vice (just a bit) in one direction so its oblong and then tightened the ever living hell out of it.

 

[RLSchwabe]

Thoughts on if putting red loctite on the oil cap screw is beneficial? I've seen it come loose and fall into the valve train a handful of times.

 

[Murdertalon]

So red locktite might be a good idea. I have used exhaust nuts that are crushed (slightly oblong) that basically self lock once torqued into place. That was my theory behind crushing the nut in a vice. It seemed to work for now, but I might just be looking for a different cap.

 

[RLSchwabe]

I picked up a one piece oil-cap.. I think at O'Reilleys? But I hate using part store parts. But I hate it more when the oil-cap grenades and drops pieces into the valve cover. We had to deal with that when we were doing a local 500 mile event... it was a nightmare. Ended up McGyvering an oil cap to limp to an autopart store to finish out the race.