I am doing some regular maintenance on the Red Baron in prep for the Pumkin Run III, and before winter, and, well, it is just time anyway, so here it is. Oil/filter/valves, air filters, that sort of thing. Car running pretty good lately so no problems I know of. I used to have a pair of those cast Al valve covers, came w/ the car, but hated them as too leaky: looked good, worked bad. Got some REAL VW stamped steel ones and these work much better, The plain-Jane Vee-dubs do not look as cool, at least not until the oil is all over the place. ANYWHO, when I took off the Al covers I neglected to remove the studs in there to which they attach. I gave the covers away at Carliels one year, and someone said: "where's the studs?" Doh!!! So any way, I have now remembered to take these out. Well, I find that if these are removed, I will need to have some other threaded device to hold the rocker ass'ys down -- no kidding??! The aforementioned "studs" are nothing more that a hex bar of just such a length drilled and tapped through at 8x1.25 mm. OK, so I go to my handy/dandy Haynes VW manual and look up what I might need, and sure enough, says right there that the std issue VW nuts (and washers too) are "special": copper coated, says in my book, keep them separate and do not confuse w/ other plain ones. Well, WTF is that all about? So the short of the story is I call Peeks Perfomance and ask about these special nuts/washers. He says: "Not so special". They use steel nuts and wavy washers in all their work, and they work fine, he says. So that is where I am. Meanwhile, the drilled and tapped hex bars were in there working just fine, one supposes, but w/ no washer either. So I will put the nuts/wavy washers from my local hardware store in there, torque to 18 ft-lb, and see how all that goes.
Just FYI is all.
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