Pushrod tube seal upgrade?

[Nick]

Whilst shopping about to find the bits to rebuild the engine in Gina, I wondered what VW air cooled engines used for sealing their pushrod tubes, a quick look on eBay, revealed a bag of 16 could be had for about £4 so I took the gamble and bought a set.
Now my engine is finally in bits and I had a clean piece of center case I decided to see how good or bad my gamble was, I think it was a good gamble but I will let you judge or yourself from the pictures..

Pictured below is a Daf seal on the left, and a VW seal on the right



This is the recess on the cylinder head where they fit


and here it is with the seals fitted into it


Pushrod tube in Daf seal (easy fit)


Pushrod tube in VW seal (needed lube to fit and a slight twist)


Same thing now using the cylinder block






looks to me like they will work just fine, and theres a lot more material surrounding my tubes so I dont think I will even need to extend the tubes prior to fitting as the seals grip the outside of the recesses on both the head and the block ;D

[Nick]

cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=390539894455

[33grinder]

That's a good find Nick! There certainly seems more flesh on the bones of those VW items

My only question is what are they made from - rubber? The DAF ones are fibrous although I've always wondered why as when fibre is saturated it leaks, as opposed to rubber which doesn't. I shouldn't think they will restrict the flow either. Good find Nick.

[Nick]

they feel like they are some form of silicon based rubber, very flexible, Joe voiced a concern as to wether or not they will allow teh tubes to be fitted between block and head as they do appear to be thicker, I will obviously find out when I try to it the heads.. until then though they seem a good find

[thebear54]

The VW ones do seem awful thick. It will be interesting to see if you have any problems with tube fit when the heads get bolted back on.

Keep us updated Nick.

John

[Nick]

yes john they are thicker, but on the bench the tube can be pushed by hand to give the equivalent height of the tube fitted using a daf seal, they are also a compressible silicon based material unlike the solid nature of the daf seals