Outer Limits 4x4 Board

2.8L Daihatsu Rocky Diesel, has a bit of seepage out the front of the block. So in a hope to stop/minimize or at least squeeze some life outta it before doing the head gasket, I decided to re-tension the head.

Anyway, long story short, we pulled the rocker cover and rocker's off, re-tensioned, put rockers and cover back on. Go to start, no compression. Check valve clearances, and adjust. Go to start with the rocker cover still off, and it runs fine. Great. Turn it off, put rocker cover on, go to start, *weeeeeeeeeooowww*. No compression wont start. Pull rocker cover off, start, runs fine. So, while it was running we tried putting the cover on, and it runs ok until you start to tighten one of the bolts that holds the cover on, then it looses compression on the cylinder under that bolt. Tighten all of them and you could stop the engine. Is this normal?(I'm guessing bloody not) so what the hell can be causing it

And by tighten I'm not talking really hard. Any tighter than basically finger tight and it wont run properly or at all.

So what do the rocker cover bolts thread into?

ya puttin it on backwards and holden open the valves???

The rocker cover couldn't be warpped could it?

KiwiBacon wrote:So what do the rocker cover bolts thread into?

There's a bolt that comes up from the head, goes thru the rocker cover. Nut goes on top.

mavzilla wrote:ya puttin it on backwards and holden open the valves???

Nup

zagan wrote:The rocker cover couldn't be warpped could it?

Sure doesn't look like it. It would have to be pretty warped to be touching the valves

Man your car is possessed...

Only thing i can think of is that the rocker gear isn't seated/torqued properly and when tightening the cover, are getting disturbed/warped somehow.

this probably is stupid... but it has to be something right... u did put the gasket in the rocker cover didn't you..

yeah gaskets there.

Could a warped/cracked head cause this to happen?

really cant imagine it, it would have to be something fouling on the rocker gear causing valves to crack open...to loose ALL compression... especally as u say that the cylander under the bolt u tighten stops.. id be triple checking rocker gear installation, and check inside valve cover for marks from fouling....

Dont know why its happened, but you may have to grind away the inside of the rocker cover. You should be able to see marks where its been touching.

Hope this helps.

Andy

are the breather lines blocked on the rocker covers?

I'm curious - any news?

dogbreath_48 wrote:I'm curious - any news?

Nah, haven't had a chance to check anything yet, but I remember it happening about 2 years ago when me and a mate where fiddling around under the bonnet and thought the rocker cover nuts where a bit loose, after when it didn't start we just loosened the nuts back off and forgot about it.

sounds to me like the spacers that determine the crush on the gasket are gone and when you are tightening the nuts it is squashing the cover down on to your rockers

sounds to me like the spacers that determine the crush on the gasket are gone and when you are tightening the nuts it is squashing the cover down on to your rockers