The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop 216 Valve cover has no oil fill hole in it

My 53 Chevy 216 doesn't have the normal oil fill hole in it. The engine has the filler pipe coming up from the passenger side, topped with a breather cap (like GM??) I researched the engine stamping # (LBA 5980 I-6), and the head casting # (GM 3835517 15) and determined that it is indeed the original Chevy engine.
Can anyone explain the different style valve cover and filler tube? I needed a new breather cap and finally had to order a GM part because I couldn't find a Chevy part.

Apparently the passenger-side fill tube was used on several of the heavier trucks. Read the bottom of this page

Hope that helps

Well, if it was perhaps a heavier duty engine, that would add up... the guy who just did my valves told me that they were larger than what he had seen on other 216s, and that he had a hard time finding them.
The truck is a 3100 1/2 ton though. Maybe it was re-engined from another (bigger) truck. There sure seems to be alot of variability to these things... I am fairly new to all this and still learning.
I guess if the engine number is different than the tag number on the door jamb I will know for sure. I'll take a look when the sun comes up.


Thanks for the info.

JFG,

The engine serial number (pressed into the ledge, just to the rear of where the distributor enters the block) and the vehicle ID (on the door-jamb plate) will not be the same codes.

Does your valve cover have slits in it?

Larger intake valves were used on the 235 head in 1953 and, as you stated, you have a 216 head. It looks like intake valves were the same for all 216 engines; and, the 216 exhaust valves changed in 1950 to match the 235.

Yes, my valve cover has the two rear-facing slits, just no fill hole.

According to the spec. in the link from Waldo53, the engine could be a series 3500, 3700 or 5000- whatever those are.
Anyone know if those were original options in a 3100 truck?

According to the PO the engine and entire drive train of my 53 was replaced with a 49 by his father-in-law (original owner), to convert a 4-speed, which it is now... it still had the old column shifter bracket on the steering column, so I know it was a three-speed originally.
But after looking up the engine numbers and finding that it is a 53, I am starting to believe that maybe only the tranny was swapped. But then again the alternate oil fill arrangement still makes me wonder.
At any rate, it is good to have four on the floor.

My 53 1 ton 216 has the filler on the valve cover. I had a 36 chevy one time and it had the filler tube like you describe.

Are you talking about the road draft tube on the side? If it has a filler cap on it, it is probably from a COE. They had no way to fill through the valve cover, so you do it from the R/H floorboard.

I don't think it's a 'draft tube'. It has an actual slip-on breather cap on top, not a twist-on filler cap. Here is a picture at this link: http://s838.photobucket.com/albums/zz304/jfgekg/Truck/

The filler in question is at the right, as seen from the passenger side of the truck. The silver thing on top of the filler is the breather cap. The vent pipe protrudes out just below the cap, then turns downward for about 6 inches, where it ends, open ended.
I don't know precisely what a draft tube is, but the pipe I have wouldn't be tall enough to come through the floor of a COE.
BTW I have the engine back together now and should be ready to fire it up this weekend or so!

If it is open ended, it is a road draft tube.

If it had been part of a PCV-type factory set-up there would be no open tube (no road-draft tube). The PCV system was introduced in 1948 delivery vans because the road-draft tube was of no use in these start-stop/low-speed vehicles.

My '48 3100 has the draft tube with an oil filler cap on top. The valve cover has no hole for a filler cap. The difference between mine and the one pictured is the breather cap. Mine has just a twist off cap - it kinda looks like a radiator cap from that era, except that it has four protrusions around the cap fir gripping. Could it be that the engine is from a '49 and someone stuck a breather cap where the original oil filler cap was?

JFG,

The part that most of us call a "draft tube" is called a crankcase ventilation tube in the Chevrolet Master Parts Catalog. Note that there is a part number for the COE and several other applications that is called the "cap type." I could not find an illustration in the catalog, but here is a description and illustration from an old shop manual.

Hope this helps.

Hoyt

Tom, you might be right! I pulled off the old breather cap, which doesn't fit very well, and noticed around the lip of the fill pipe two extensions that go about 1/2 way around. I guess those are for a normal cap's lower edges to hook under when it's twisted on. Your idea about it being a '49 would jibe with the PO's story, except that the 'LBA' stamping indicates 1953, as far as I can tell.

It would also seem redundant to have a breather cap on a filler that already has a breather tube, too, come to think of it.

Thanks.