C-1 '62 Oil Filter

[Duke W.]

Re: C-1 '62 Oil Filter

Ah! I didn't think to look at the AIM because I figured the bypass valve and filter were installed at Flint, but my '63 AIM shows NO gasket!

Maybe Joe can run 3903322 and tell us what Group No. it's in, so we can see if it's listed in the P&A catalog.

So I guess Flint bolted an adaptor on the oil filter boss that was the source of engine oil for the hot test? Did they drain the oil back out after hot test or just leave it in the engine?

I bet sometime circa '66 an engineer decided that the bypass valve housing should have a gasket, wrote up the ECR, ran it through the CCB, and got it approved.

Let's see, by '67 Chevrolet must have already build nearly two million SBs without a gasket at that location.

Duke

[John H.]

Re: C-1 '62 Oil Filter

Duke -

Yup, one of the many adapters applied at hot-test was one that served as a shunt to seal the oil filter cavity in the block, as the bypass valve was installed at the assembly plants. When the hot-test cycle was complete, the oil was drained into a circulation/filtration system that served all the hot-test stands, and the engine was shipped with no oil.

[mike cobine]

Re: C-1 '62 Oil Filter

Let's see, by '67 Chevrolet must have already build nearly two million SBs without a gasket at that location.

Duke


Considering that Chevy built around 1.1 million V8 cars in 1967 alone, of which of course many were big blocks, I would imagine the number of small block V8s built by then was many times that amount.

[Joe L.]

Re: C-1 '62 Oil Filter

Duke-----

The GM #3903322 gasket was used for the valve-to-block interface for the 1967 model year only. Although it will not be found in any Corvette-only P&A Catalog (i.e. October, 1969 and later), it was used on Corvettes for the 1967 model year as well as all other 1967 Chevrolet V-8 engines. It was NEVER specified as being retroactively applicable to earlier engines but, presumably, that could be done if someone wanted to do so.

As has been reported, it may very well have been supplied with the SERVICE GM #5573979 valve ("adapter") assembly, but only on those packaged after the introduction of the 3903322 gasket. In that case, the gasket would really have been applicable only to 1967 models (which otherwise used the same 5573979 valve as earlier models). Since its use on earlier models would have caused no problems, there may or may not have been any instructions supplied with the valve to indicate that the gasket was applicable to 1967 only engines.

The gasket was once available seperately in SERVICE and is a "member" of parts group 1.837. It was released in late 1966 and was discontinued from SERVICE without supercession in July, 1981.

In my mind the gasket is absolutely superfluous. In further support of that consider that the spin-on adapter (GM called the "adapter" for 1956-67 engines a "VALVE", but for the spin-on type it's actually called an "ADAPTER") never used a gasket, yet the "rationale" behind a gasket should have been the same for both designs. So, in this regard, what started for 1967 ended with 1967. My opinion as to the superfluousness of the gasket is based upon the fact that any leakage, as minimal as it will be, between the valve and block interface is utterly inconsequential.

[Verne Frantz]

Re: C-1 '62 Oil Filter

Joe,
I bought the new ones I have in the early '80s. The boxes only contained the "adaptor" body and the brown paper gasket, no instructions or anything else. After taking apart several earlier engines and not finding a gasket there, I was wondering how come, since the news ones I had came with one. Now I know. Thanks.
Verne