Date:         Mon, 04 Jul 94 23:02:30 CDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Joel Walker <JWALKER@ua1vm.ua.edu>
Subject:      Re: Leaky pushrod tubes...who changes oil?

On Mon, 4 Jul 94 21:56:57 CDT H Steven Dolan said:
>Is there a long term solution to these (*&$(% items?  I seem to change
>mine every six months with fair results at best. I just did all of them two
>weeks ago and three started leaking again right off the bat. HELP!

steve, check and see if your tubes are bent. every time i've done mine,
at least one or two get 'bent' a little, so i get a bunch of brand new ones.
i also put a little axle grease on each seal (just a wipe) so that it slides
into position easily.  and clean, clean, clean the places where the tubes
and seals fit into on the head and on the case. don't leave any old seal
or crud on either head or case ... it'll start leaking again.

another possibility: if you happened to have gotten crappy seals (say, from
an less-than-reputable FLAPS), you might wish to try another source. you
could also try a trick my brother told me about: on the type 4 engines,
(1972-1983), they used the porsche seals for the 914/912E ... it seems that
the porsche seals lasted longer than the vw seals and could withstand the
heat of hard running better (in their opinion). but the porsche seals cost
more.

off hand, i'd bet your leaks are caused by some old seal/crud left in the
head/case 'socket'. that happened to me a couple of times, and finally i
figured out that whenever i did the seals, i needed to really really clean
(like with a rag soaked in grease-remover) the tube sockets.

good luck.
joel