The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop 54+ 235 engine tin

Mine appear to be warped and leaking. Do the aluminum valve and side cover seal better than the sheet metal ones?
And is there a perimeter bolted aluminum valve cover for the 235?

A well-made aluminum piece that is straight, combined with good gaskets, will seal very well. But it isn't hard to straighten the stock sheet metal, either.

Using a standard body hammer and a dolly (or small ballpeen and makeshift piece of steel as a dolly), and a little patience, the covers can be straightened and the flanges worked back to flat fairly easily. Check with a good straight edge to assure flatness, and that the cover is straight. It's important to pay attention to the bolt holes in the covers, since they are usually depressed somewhat from the mounting bolts being over-tightened over the years. A ballpeen hammer is a good tool to gently knock them back to shape.

If the parts can't be saved for some reason, it shouldn't be hard to locate used replacements. A parts-wanted post in the Swap Meet forum of this group should turn up usable pieces, as another alternative.

Hope this helps!

Doug

There is something therapeutic about successfully straightening out 70 year old sheet metal to fit tightly to 70 year old cast iron. Its hard to beat and is worth the time to give it a go.

I appreciate your desires to retain the originality. Repairing the original tin wasn’t part of my question.

My interest and question is about the quality of the various cast aluminum covers, only.

There is some discussion about 235s and their accessories including aluminum covers on the HAMB. You could join that forum and search, or use Google advanced search and probably find something helpful.

I recently installed an OTB brand aluminum valve cover on my 261. It seals extremly well and mounts with the two studs like a 216 and early 235's. The cover wasn't cheap but it is a quality peice it comes with a spacer and gaskets to move your thermostat housing foward because of the thickness of the cover. I am very pleased with the cover.

Offy still makes their traditional finned aluminum valve cover. There is a really terrific "Thickson" finned aluminum valve cover currently on the market, that one is finned top and sides and is pretty unusual. There were some Wayne reproductions but I think they are out of production at the moment, the OTB version, and Tome Lowe at 12bolt.com makes a nice finned cover.

In the past, Fenton made covers, and there was a CAW cover that was apparently made for commercial trucks to lessen the valve train noise. I have one of those if you want a photo. There was a fella that ran a batch of similar looking covers but that was a one time thing. There are other more rare covers that were sold over the years. Most are two bolt versions that you can run on a two bolt head (53 and earlier) or a four bolt head (54 and later) by installing the earlier rocker studs

Thanks! I like the Offy stuff. Hadn’t found the Thickson or 12bolt yet.