Thought I would post a pic of the modification I do to the stock type-1 valve cover. This mod eliminates any chance of the gasket pushing up, allowing oil to leak past the cover. It also eliminates any use of gasket sealer so changing gaskets is a breeze.
All it takes is a 3/8" wide piece of sheetmetal spot welded onto the valve cover.
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Oh, Great.
Now I've got Valve Cover Envy, too.......
Thanks, Pat
(Ps: That's a friggin, great idea. Thanks!)
You'd think all those years and VW would have picked it up!
You'd think all those years and VW would have picked it up!
It's only a problem with modified, higher revving engines, Greg, so VW would never add (at extra cost) something that never really afflicted the stockers.
And thanks Pat, for showing the welded tab in the valve cover. It's an old trick, guys, that's been used for years (and one most of our engines could use as a safeguard). I've heard of people putting a tab top and bottom, as well as 1 on each side. Whether they do any more than what Pat posted, I don't know. Al
I bet George invented this 
I have been doing the mod for years, never have had a reason to add a tab on top of the valve cover, VW added a bump on top for this very reason. I have added two on the bottom before but never had a problem with one wide tab in the middle. Not sure where the idea started from, I just did it because I was tired of gaskets moving around and hate to clean up the old gasket sealer when replacing gaskets.
I can't really see what your trying to show us in your photo! Would you please produce some other photos that depict it better ?......Bruce
There's a little welded tab on the bottom inside edge of the valve cover to keep the gasket from being sucked in, Bruce. Have you clicked on the pic to make it larger?
I can't really see what your trying to show us in your photo! Would you please produce some other photos that depict it better ?......Bruce
Bruce,
Embiggen the photo and if you look inside the valve cover there is a ridge that forms a large + running vertically and horizontally. Follow the vertical part of the + to the bottom edge of the valve cover. You should see 3 somewhat shiny bumps along the bottom edge of the cover. Those are the spot welds that are holding a tab onto the edge of the valve cover. That is the part PD has added to keep the gasket from moving. There is a matching tab on the top edge of the valve cover as well.
DUH....Ok I see it now. Too bad I didn't do this earlier. I already had one gasket slip inside. What a mess! I did find out that Oven Cleaner really works to clean the burned oil off my A-1 muffler ! Looks like I'll have an added little task on my next Valve adj. as well .... Good little fix !.......Bruce
You could weld a tab inside the valve cover faster than it would take to clean off the RTV when its time to replace the gaskets.
You could send your valve covers to me and I could practice on them with my not-yet-used-but-new-to-me TIG welder, but given the sucky-ass quality of all of my past welds, what's left of your valve cover after I get done messing with it would look like a pile of Ostrich Poop. 
Assuming you don't trust Harbor Freight, your spot welder is as close as that old microwave oven & a couple hours fabbing.
Nope, sorry dude. I bought by brother's Miller.
Kelly, send them to me over the winter. If you drill a couple holes in the tabs, then clean it all nice and shiny, you can sort-of spot-weld with a plain old Mig like I have.
Should take about 20 minutes to cut and drill the tabs, then weld them on. Easy-peasy as Wild Bill says.
Danny, That is a nice offer. What I might do is hunt around for another set of VCs, and then send those up to your welding shop. But the simple truth is that a little smakum-puckey (red RTV) works great. If we go back to my first car (a '56 356 bought in 1966), I been doing this for 50 years. Granted there was a VERY long interval in those years filled with Volvos, Hondas, a '66 Mustang, and Toyotas, a period thoroughly deplete of Porsche products.
