Leaky valve cover gasket: Tips?

[Grec]

440.

My pass. side valve cover has a leak in the lower rear corner.

This leak 1st showed itself when I re-did my cover gaskets to fix another leak.

Took two tries to get it to seal that time. That was using a set of cheap moroso covers.

Now I'm trying to seal a set of factory 70 440hp covers and am getting a leak in the exact same place that I had before.

ie: two different sets of covers - leak in the exact same place.

Must be an imperfection in the head's surface.

Short of getting that smoothed out, do you guys have any tips on getting a troublesome gasket to seal?

I've tried both rubber and rubber-coated fiber types (both fel-pro) with form-a-gasket as sealant.

I'm on my 3rd try, now. Ugh.

 

[MEK-Dangerfield]

Welcome to my world.   


  The lower back corner, on the passenger's side of the heads on my car feels a little rough compared to everything else. It gave me fits too. Clean it well with alcohol to get all oil off it. Useing clean gaskets, put some black RTV on them to fill in the cracks. That worked for me. Good luck.

  Mike

[Chryco Psycho]

the valve cover rails are just cast not milled & are never flat which is why Mopar used steel covers , I wish I had an easy fix but I dont  , clean with brake clean , use lots of silicone [oil resistant] & let it sit over night to fully cure

[Stacked440]

I had same problem with the cast aluminum mopar covers for my 440, but the reason was I used the black paper gaskets instead of neoprene rubber ones.      Those crappy paper ones never seal.  Little hindsight I guess.

[Grec]

Thanks, guys.

I give it yet another try. :-)

Cheers.

[chevyconvert]

I feel for you brother !
Go back through the archives and you'll see those pesky covers gave me fits

Knock on wood, they are finally sealed 

I did it a couple of times my self with no luck.

Then I had it in a specialty shop for the fuel system and they agreed to fix them....and they leaked !

They said it's definetly the rough casting and they're not straight. Mine were high in the middle and you could "teeter totter" the cover on the head while trial fitting.

Anyways, they fixed them under warranty with a no further warranty disclaimer but they're both dry as a bone!

I sure dread the day I have to remove them for anything.