By David Wilce (203.96.152.182) on Thursday, December 28, 2000 - 07:34 pm:

Has anyone had problems with blowing their dipsick out?
I had the problem when my race motor was worn, but not that it has been rebuilt, it has happened agian. I was pulling about 7000rpm and it popped the seal. It seamed to go better when the crankcase could breath. The motor only has a breather from the cam cover where a lot of motors have them from the crankcase or both. Is this common? Any ideas?

By Adrian (Civicguru) (203.35.226.212) on Thursday, December 28, 2000 - 07:53 pm:

I've had the dipstick pop out a time or two. I never bothered doing it, but one solution would be to put a spring on it holding it in (seen this done a few times).
These engines seem to develop a lot of crankcase pressure so it's important to make sure the breather in the rocker cover isn't blocked at all. I've never really thought about putting in a crankcase breather ... might not be such a bad idea, you'd just have to make sure it has a good oil separator so all the oil doesn't get pumped out through it.

By David Wilce (203.96.152.182) on Friday, December 29, 2000 - 02:52 am:

Modern cars have a PCV valve. Early cars like the Fiat twin cams had a wire gauze called a flame trap pushed inside the breather hose. I am lazy, so I thought the easiest way would be to mount a breather hose off the dipstick tube running to my catch tank. It would mean popping it off to check the oil and keeping the dipstick in the car. Has anyone found a better way?

By Todd (63.52.16.189) on Friday, December 29, 2000 - 04:54 am:

I simply modified the stock valve cover so that it had two vent holes, as opposed to two holes, and routed them to my catch can. That one vent was only meant to relieve pressure from an engine that turned 5500 rpm. The spring is a good idea, but the excess pressure has to go somewhere.

By Todd (63.52.16.189) on Friday, December 29, 2000 - 04:55 am:

I simply modified the stock valve cover so that it had two vent holes, as opposed to one hole, and routed them to my catch can. That one vent was only meant to relieve pressure from an engine that turned 5500 rpm. The spring is a good idea, but the excess pressure has to go somewhere.

By JohnJacob1 (38.27.177.39) on Friday, December 29, 2000 - 04:36 pm:

I have the same problem except my cam seal pops off!! I am now on my... lets see... 1, 2, 3, 4th one!!! Does this have anything to do with a slight leak on my head gasket? Because I hope when I replace it I dont have to keep on duct taping the cam seal on! I have even wedged a piece of wood between the seal and the motor mount just for good measure. I was going to bring up this subject myself!! I never thought similar things like this happened to anyone else!!!

By David Wilce (203.96.152.182) on Saturday, December 30, 2000 - 03:11 am:

John,
Blowing out the cam seal is a bit extreme. I suggest you check your cam cover breather system. Make sure theat there are no blockages. I can't remember exactly what is there in the cam cover, but from memory, there was a gauze or something on the top of the cover before the hose. Also check the hose as a build up of crap can block it too.

By Todd (63.52.4.62) on Saturday, December 30, 2000 - 09:29 pm:

Yeah, When I was real young (read stupid) I plugged my valve cover breather with this cool looking piece of rubber. It took me four cam seals (I even glued the last one) to realize that hole was there for a reason.
A blown head gasket introduces excess pressure into the cooling system, but not much crankcase pressure.

By JohnJacob (38.27.177.189) on Monday, January 01, 2001 - 08:43 pm:

I got rid of the factory hose on the valve cover breather and put on an even larger one leading to a paper towel (I added the paper towel after it blew all kinds of shit all over my engine compartment, I know I will get a catch tank soon...) to hope that this would cease the problem of the blown cam seals. All kinds of crap blows out of there, but it is not clogged. Mostly coolant in my oil and oil in my coolant is my biggest problem so let me change the head gasket and hope that works. I did notice that it was gone after I had reved above 5500 rpm if that makes a difference. Could this excess pressure in the coolant system from the head gasket, result in going thru 3 water pumps in 20,000 miles? (The maker guaranteed them for a year and they didn't even last that, so I got my free replacement) Do they just not remanufacture them as well as a Honda OEM?

By David Wilce (203.97.2.242) on Friday, January 05, 2001 - 03:24 am:

John,
I would fix the blow head gasket first. As for the waterpump, I have sold many different brands of waterpump over the years and only had one brand (Italian) that gave trouble. I have heard of some cheap and nasty Tiwanese pumps, but don't know what they are. How tight are you tightening the fan belt? Over tightening the fanbelt is a common cause of premature w/pump failure. If you are having problems with the brand of pump, splash out on a better one, as a failed pump can lead to blown h/gasket or cooking the motor (more expensive). Are you using an inhibitor/antifreeze? One of its functions is a lubricant of the pump seals. Something to think about.

By JohnJacob (38.27.177.166) on Friday, January 05, 2001 - 07:19 pm:

In the orignal factory pump (#1) and the replacement pump (#2) the bearings in the pump went so bad that the pulley and whole rotor on the pump was about to fall off. The original factory one was even begining to leak. I slapped #3 on there and I hope it will last a while. I will loosen my fan belt too. It used to squeal so I had tightened it. Maybe it is too tight. The pump maker is American. I can't remember the name off the top of my head. But its not my favorite company any more.

By errol (152.163.195.177) on Sunday, January 07, 2001 - 06:57 am:

David is right on his sugestions. The valve cover holds a 'baffle' design to allow oil to drip/flow back to the head and then permit the blowby to be used for the emissions back to the carb. Take the four screws out and gently pry the baffle assembly out of the cover (try not to damage the gasket) and clean all of that 'ka ka' out. But the thing that gets me is why is there soo much blowby?? I can see that the crank would develop air speed at 5-6000rpm but it might be a ring sealing problem first off. I have had a number of hondas that seemed to run fine but after a rebuild (just to freshen up not a catastrophy) the rings were broke or the frst couple of ring lands were badly scored without too much damage to the cylinder wall. The 'taper' on the walls could be excessive also, all with just a 'dirty' or 'crusty' plug every so often. Just for kicks see if you can put a pressure gauge on that breather output and seal the dipstick and see what kind of pressure it's running at what rpm, idle and so on. (If you can get a boost gauge that shows vacume and boost try to adapt it) Oh and don't let the head gasket go for too long, the coolant tends to eat away at the block between the cylinders more than the head (especially on a cast iron block engine) and you might think that it's the head and it could be that the block is warped. errol