clickscrazy

4.9 6 5 speed. I just did the oil pan gasket, and valve cover.

Now onto the Pushrod gasket.

I plan on using a Felpro rubber gasket. Do I need to use any permatex in addition, and if so, how should it be applied? (Both sides of gasket, to engine first, or what)

Also, there are 2 obstacles to 2 of the bolts. The distributor (I assume I can pop the cap off), and a bundle of wires towards the front of the engine (how do I remove that?)

tanman90

No sealant is needed with the rubber gaskets, it'll say that in the instructions. I've got a fel pro rubber oil pan gasket and valve cover gaskets on my 302. I didn't use sealant (with the exception of the corners of the oil pan) and it doesn't leak. Great quality product

fordtrucknut

the pushrod cover is notorious for leaking...

when I rebuilt my engine I used all rubber gaskets and used permetex ultra grey, on all the rubber gaskets, just a very very light thin coat, I used about half a tube on the complete engine...

5 years later and not a single leak on the engine.

also replace the center bolt rubber grommets too, and put a light coat on them also.

miataman

When I did mine earlier this year, I put sealer on the cover and let the gasket setup on the cover to ease install.

I removed the dist. cap with wires, routed around the others.

2,000 miles, no leaks so far...

Manuellabour247

The only time I've ever really seen those cover leak is from over-revving of a buddy's 300. The pressure just pushed them out a litte bit, but that was the old gaskets. The new rubber ones are 10 times what the old ones were as far as not leaking. Just make sure both areas are cleaned with a non filming cleaner. If it were me, I'd do like stated above and put a very thin coat on the cover itself then put the gasket on. I like to put a small amount of weight on the cover to fully seat the gasket in the sealant overnight, but that's just me.