Car Gasket Question
- Thread starter CyStalker
- Start date
Since your block is aluminum, I'd use a plastic paint scraper / putty knife (also shown by the guy in the video). The plastic won't scratch the aluminum at all.
Wd40 lots of scraping, finally suck it up and use steel scraper carefully, get really ****** and use a rolox scotch brite in air drill. Scotch brite pads are usually very easy on alumn. Still be gentle.
Go to your local auto parts store and get a Gasket Scraper , the WD-40 suggestion is a good one, the last head that I had to clean up I used WD-40 and a 3M scratch pad to clean off the residue. Cleaned it up to looking like new in less than 45 minutes.
Oreillys carb cleaner has some pretty nasty solvents. That or fast lacquer thinner are usually my go-to general solvents for stuff like this.
I wouldn't be too scared of using a razor blade, either, as long as you go easy.
If it were me, I'd hit it with some solvent, get the big chunks with a razor blade, and then go at the little stuff with solvent on a shop towel and/or scotchbrite pad.
Out of curiosity, what are you working on? As far as I can remember, anything I've had head gaskets apart on (not a huge sample size) came apart with the gasket more or less intact.
I wouldn't be too scared of using a razor blade, either, as long as you go easy.
If it were me, I'd hit it with some solvent, get the big chunks with a razor blade, and then go at the little stuff with solvent on a shop towel and/or scotchbrite pad.
Out of curiosity, what are you working on? As far as I can remember, anything I've had head gaskets apart on (not a huge sample size) came apart with the gasket more or less intact.
I'm confused--you said in the original post this was for the head gasket... is the thermostat somehow part of the head gasket?
If it's just the gasket between the intake and the thermostat housing I wouldn't be too concerned about going at that with whatever you need to get the old crap off. Even if you were to nick the aluminum scraping off the old gasket, it's never going to see that much pressure... and you could easily use some auxillary RTV or gasket sealer before putting it back together if you were scared about it.
If it's just the gasket between the intake and the thermostat housing I wouldn't be too concerned about going at that with whatever you need to get the old crap off. Even if you were to nick the aluminum scraping off the old gasket, it's never going to see that much pressure... and you could easily use some auxillary RTV or gasket sealer before putting it back together if you were scared about it.
