"Dick" wrote in message
. com...
Exactly the trick I was looking for inside the cover. Thanks.

Thinking to replace those lower pushrod tube spring clips with S.S. hose
clamps.. Thoughts?

Dick

Look at a Continental Engine Manual, Dick. SS Hose clamps won't fit.

Those spring clamps are designed for the purpose and work well in my
experience as long as they are properly seated in the grooves of the
synthetic rubber boots, with one inner clamp compressing the boot on the
crankcase boss tube and one outer clamp compressing the boot on the pushrod
tube. Of course the boots must be properly seated too on the pushrod tube
bosses (also called pushrod housing flanges) and the pushrod tubes. You
have to fight, grunt, and cuss to get them on properly and then use a
telescoping mirror and strong flashlight to assure they are seated properly.
You have to look at them from side to side and bottom to top, because both
the boots and the clamps WILL do their damnedest to come off their seats if
they can. Push from outside inward instead of from inside outward. Hell,
use a heat gun to warm them up a little, but not enough to burn
them.(Sometimes you will bust your knuckles and cuss.) Squirt them with a
good lube like LPS-1 to make the seating easier. An oil leak can be stopped
by rotating or staggering the clamps as long as the boot has not been
ruined. You need a proper pair of spring clamp pliers -- Snap-on or
Craftsman --- to loosen and move the clamps.

This is no work for the faint of heart or pink-fingered. When the clamps
and boots are on right you won't find any oil leaks around them. I have
rebuilt a few engines and have complete faith in them. I just examined two
O-300 engines recently rebuilt and both of them are dry around the pushrod
tubes on both ends. Sometimes you will have leaks around the cylinder base
nuts or cylinder base flanges, but that's something to correct at rebuild
time--- and the subject of another essay with a cussword or two for
mechanics who have damaged the crankcase by slapping the connecting rods
around the cylinder parting bosses.

If you don't have palnuts on those cylinder base nuts, I suggest you put
them on for your safety. The record is full of those nuts coming off,
despite being torqued to specs. And I can tell you that when a jug comes
loose the results are often deadly.