The area around the PVC valve of my 350 HO Deluxe has always been a bit oily. Recently, I decided the rubber had become old and hard and time had come to replace. With a quick look on line, I discovered, to my amazement, that grommets designed for aluminum valve covers have a narrower "groove width" than those designed for steel valve covers (1/8 vs. 1/4 or thereabouts). I also discovered that my 3/4" PVC valve was floating around in a grommet with a 1" I.D. (Probably the biggest source of the oil.) Imagine then how snugly the correct grommet fit in the valve cover and how snugly the PVC valve fit in a grommet with the correct I.D. The original grommets were in place from the factory, so umm. The correct grommet with a 1" I.D. to fit the breather tube is next. The O.D. of these grommets, BTW, is 1.25". Livin' and learnin'.



JamesC

 

Cast aluminum cover gets a thin groove, and stamped steel get a wide one? That would not have been my guess.