Timing cover machining advice wanted!
 

I am planning on clamping a timing cover down to my milling machine and cleaning up the gasket surfaces.

Has anyone else done this?

If so what pitfalls lie in wait for me?

Hopefully as part of this I might be able to get the water pump vent to be a bit proud of the water pump mounting surface. Which should help keep the intake ports better matched.

It may move the main seal lip close enough to the block to give the seal lip an unused surface on the balancer to ride on.

I did some searching and didn't find any threads on milling the timing cover.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Not sure how much you plan on taking off, but the oil pan to timing cover seal angle may be effected if only milling the block side, also it may effect the puller alignment with the water pump pulley.

Good point about the pulley alignment. I was only planning on removing the minimum amount to get reasonable gasket surfaces. So hopefully I won't be having to make custom pulley spacers too. 🙂

I have one cover that is badly cracked around one of bottom though bolts. I was going to use it as a test piece.

Thanks for your input.

I have used successfully some darn poor looking timing covers just by using a good bead of form-a- gasket on both sides of the gasket.

In fact after doing this it’s hard a hell to get the cover back off!

How bad is yours?

I guess you could make a shim the thickness you machine off to get the pump pulley back where it needs to stick out.

Go buy yourself a new timing cover. Another issue maybe the dowels not fitting properly in the timing cover to block. As mentioned, crank seal, Water transfer tubes maybe too long now, bolts to long, mismatch oil pan gasket and bolt holes, pulley and fan alignment, What about space behind timing cover to cam bolt head. What about the fuel pump arm alignment. Make sure to seal the coolant holes on both side of the timing cover gasket when installing. And the rubber dough-nut is nice and thick for the water crossover. Check with Tin Indian, or BOP, they have thick ones. I always put a little sealer on each side of that rubber dough-nut. If that doesn't work for port alignment separate the water crossover from the intake.
https://www.tinindianperformance.com...ng-cover-seal/
https://www.tinindianperformance.com...-cover-late-1/
https://www.bopengineering.com/A_Pon...ooling_1.shtml

Just thinking out load here. No offense intended.

Pioneer makes a nice new cover!

I'm in this camp. How bad is yours? I typically just glue my timing cover onto the block face with Ultra Blue (no gasket) and it fills in any corrosion pits in the mating surface. Never had a leak. If it's beyond repair and needs machining i'd just get a new cover now they're reproduced in plentiful numbers.

My vote would be Permatex #2 sealer.

Pitting can be filled with JBweld then sanded smooth. Usually sandblast or wire wheel the pitting and clean with break cleaner so the epoxy sticks.

That’s all extra work that’s not needed !
Just brakleen out any oil from the pitting and use the gasket maker.

Thanks for all the information everyone. I pretty sure I'm going to do a test run on the cracked cover. I've got the cover, the mill, and a short block on the engine stand so it's just my time to do it and see what I learn.