Missing seal on the engine cover ???

[kesha]

Hi all. I've the question about the black front plastic cover (yes, the one with a lot of flaked paint under it, rust, rotten sponge and all) does it supposed to have a seal ?? I took it out - decided to repaint the engine cover and noticed the thread on the edge- looks like it's designed to hold a rubber seal to stop the water comung in ???

 

[Allan Davies]

never seen one on mine and I take off on a regular basis, (nosey fecker me) as for that sponge, ditch the fecking thing IMHO

 

[kesha]

Any ideas why was it there in the first place ?? ( I mean this sponge thingy ??)

 

[GSband]

Noise reduction. If you have a good ear, you can detect a difference (or so I've heard ).

 

[SPL]

There is no seal.

In fact, if you look closely, there are a couple of holes at the bottom of the cover.

I imagine this is designed to let any water that gets in through the vents at the top of the cover simply run out.

Of course, putting a bloody great lump of sponge in there to absorb all the water before it reaches the drain hole kinda buggers that idea up

Bin the sponge, squirt the engine casing with an anti-corrosion spay, and don't worry about the seal.

 

[kesha]

Thanks !!! Not very clever, the whole design....the cover gets very hot+the pipe is very close+lots of water.....no wonder it's all rusty. Cleaned it up, got rid of the sponge, put a bit of sandpaper to it, two layers of silver hammerite, looks neat, not sure for how long.....fingers crossed.

 

[GSband]

I went the other way : cleaned sponge thoroughly, then (really) soaked it in WD40, and put it back. Every now and then I check behind the black cover to clean away the sand and grit deposits. The bolts that fix the cover get a serious amount of ACF50 to prevent corrosion.
Hope this will keep things all right for a while.