old head gasket material removal?

[hooziewhatsit]

How do you guys get rid of the left over gasket material on the heads/block?

 

How clean does it need to be? shiny clean, or just smooth to the touch?

 

 

I've tried a razor blade... kinda works, leaves scratches in the aluminum if I'm not carefull. Tried carb cleaner + rag, didn't really do much. Tried some sandpaper; don't like how it scuffs up the metal. btw, I'm doing all this on a junk engine I have lying around. I want to find something that works before I go to town on the good engine.

 

I read through the forums, and only found 'remove old gaskets + material, make sure they're CLEAN, then reinstall' Nowhere did I find how exactly to clean them. I figure this is the engines payback for having everything else come apart easily.

 

also, while I have a thread started, how do you remove BAD carbon deposits from the valves? just chisel on them?

 

Thanks,

-Dave

[Phizinza]

I'm not 100% sure this would be a good idea but I would try to be ultra smoth with the razor blade not worrying if i don't get it back to bear metal. Then I would use 200-800 grit "wet and dry" (mostlikly using it wet) to clean up t e surface. use a block of wood thats straight with the wet and dry so not to round the edges of the head/block surface.

But as I said... i'm not sure if this is a good idea or not.

[MilesFox]

use a brass wire wheel with a drill to clean up the carbon

 

razor blade is fine to scrape away the graphite, the dimples are ok so long as the surface is flat, the dimples are more of a shadow from the gasket than an uneven surface

 

razor blade(for gasket leftovers) and carb cleaner(for nasty grease) has always done me right

[hooziewhatsit]

well, finally got them clean enough I think. A combination of razor blade/knife to wear down the tall points, then a green scour pad seemed to pretty well smooth it all out. Thanks for the ideas guys.

 

now I just need to find a way to keep everything clean while I put it back together...

 

I'm thinking a 5 gallon bucket with some gas should knock all the tiny dirt crud off all the cam towers, valve covers, etc, before they get re-installed, as well as get most of the oil off the outside. This SPFI engine blew a headgasket on cylinder 3, for those keeping track of HG failures.

 

any ideas would be welcome as I hijack my own thread :-)

[Adam N.D.J.]

Soaking in gas isn't such a good idea, as this will harden up and crack your valve seals, which will make your engine suck oil and smoke pretty good.

 

If you pick up a gasket scraper, they work good. If your "ahem" thrifty "ahem", like most of us are, you can get a wide putty knife (about 2-3") and put a beveled edge on it with some fine grit sand paper or a sharpening stone. Use that to scrape off the excess buildup of gasket, then take a long wide strip of 800 grit sand paper, soak it with some WD40, and use a good flat surface (I have a big piece of glass) and run the head over that, it will polish up the surface real good. But don't take off too much material (this would take a long time anyways). You can get steel sanding blocks that are a good sure flat surface for use on the engine block.

 

Then when you get everything all cleaned up good, go out and get yourself a can of Copper Coat, you can pick it up at NAPA. This stuff rocks, we use it at work on all headgaskets that we get in. Put a good even coat on both sides of the gasket, the block, and the head. Don't worry about over spraying into the cylinders and combustion chamber, it will just burn off. Then put everything together while the Copper Coat is still a little tacky to the touch. Make sure you get everything torqued to the right spec and in the right order and you shouldn't have any problems.

[hooziewhatsit]

Soaking in gas isn't such a good idea, as this will harden up and crack your valve seals, which will make your engine suck oil and smoke pretty good.

 

 

hehehe, that's good to know. I was only thinking about doing it on the cam towers and valve covers to get the crud off. Should have also said something more like splashing the bits around in the gas to get the crud off.

 

Thanks for the other tips also. I'm hoping to get it pretty much fully assembled tomorrow. I need to go to town anyways for another radiator hose (see my other thread), so I'll get this copper spray stuff while I'm at it.

 

Thanks again

-Dave