Tappet cover bolts.....

R

rightwinger

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Jan 11, 2013
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Since I have done my P pump conversion I have had several oil and fuel leaks, all of which were easy fixes and I was down to one very minor oil leak and I finally located it. It is coming from the tappet cover bolt right behind the P pump. If I get under the truck I can see the allen bolt that is loose, but I can't hardly even get my hand up there to it. I have tried a small but longer ratchet with a hex socket on it and that doesn't work because the ratchet hits the P pump. A allen key just isn't long enough to reach either. I'm thinking maybe I could remove the vac pump, and just leave it loose in that location and hopefully that might give me enough clearance to reach the bolt. I'm trying to avoid removing the entire p pump just to tighten this bolt. The injection lines on these conversions are such a hassle to get on I would really like to avoid all that mess again and was hoping someone has a better method to solving this problem. Thanks in advance.
 
You could get a ratchet wrench and cut a small piece of allen wrench to put in the ratcheting end to tighten it up. Some tool kits have those little ratcheting bit wrenches that are about 2.5" long for this kind of thing too.
 
That's a good idea, thank you sir. Worst case scenario I'll take the pump off and tighten it, and then since the pump is off I'll bump the timing up a few degrees anyway. I'm currently at 20* and I think it would do better at 24*, especially since I'm still running VP injectors.
 
I have done the above mentioned idea with allen in a racheting wrench. To keep the allen positively located I used a rubber band. Very skinny and looped some over the allen in front of the wrench and over the allen behind the wrench. Keeping it centered in the wrench. Makes the frustration level decrease slightly.
 
I have a billet tappet cover, and am not even sure the size of the allen bolts because I havn't been able to get anything on it yet to see. Anyone know the allen size off the top of their head?
 
Another thing you might do, is, kobalt makes a set of adapters just for that. They are hex shaped on one end, to go in a ratchet wrench, and the other end is square, for a socket. So, you could use a ratchet wrench, and your hex socket.

02 24v, with factory replacement, multi-layer copper coated head gasket,10lb overtorqued,160hp p-pump, 191dv's, 4,000gsk, mack rack plug, no plate, modded afc, s366 turbo(65psi), ptc triple disk billet converter, red eagle 47-re, valvebosy, 3.55 gears, glowshift gauges(egt, boost, trans)
 
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