head gasket swap

[ss240]

Hey all, Just a quick question... I'm using a drywall scraper right now to scrape off the old gasket material. Does anyone know of a refined method to remove the residual gasket material?

You guys can take a look at my progress at this website. It may be very helpful to future members who are looking to do a head gasket job.

http://photos.yahoo.com/craigods

[NISTECH]

and sanding block with very fine sand paper attached to it.

[Chingon]

and sanding block with very fine sand paper attached to it.

Wouldn't that mess up the cross sectional grooves made for sealing that came from the factory?

[Hijacker]

if it's fine grit paper, it shouldn't mar the metal. plus you wouldn't want to press heavily either. and to top it all off with, i would reccomend putting some gasket maker on both sides of the gasket (it was something i noticed some SR builders doing, so i would assume it would work for other nissan motors as well) to help seal it properly.

[180fan]

gasket maker? you mean that liquid stuff?

[NISTECH]

I wouldnt recommend any type of sealer on the gasket. when this thing is compressed by the head it is plenty sealed. the cross sectional grooves are just maching marks. no it wont hurt it on the head side you just do it enough to clear the gasket material off. the pattern left on the the metal from the gasket does not need to be removed. all your after is any material left from the old gasket. I use about a 10" 2x2 with a strip of sand paper from a roll wraped all the way around the wood and staple it at the end. that way I have 2 long flat sanding surfaces that will keep it all even. and I use full length runs across the surfaces so as not to over sand one area of the metal.

[Hijacker]

question then. i hate super street, but they had an article on building an S15 SR. The guy that was rebuilding the engine used gasket maker on both sides of the head gasket. What would be the pros and cons of it then?

[NISTECH]

it is his prefference obviously. but putting something between the head and engine that you cant make 100% even is risky due to the precision torquing sequence involved to assure the head gasket crushes evenly. I wouldnt do it nor would I recommend it. thats my personal prefference.

[Kavkazia]

I just recentley installed headstuds, copper gasket, and I had head o ringed for my 325i, and my old copper gasket left lot of sealent around block surfaces, and when I had head off, it started to rust little bit from little bit of coolant that fell on it, anyway, I used 1000grit sand paper, special rubber little piece that is flat, and has little blades to hold sand paper tight.

It works really good, I wasnt even expecting to clean all the rust and dirt off so well and easy.

[Nathan]

Wouldn't little flecks of sand/metal then fall into the cylinders? I'd be really worried about that happening personally. Also, is it normal for the factory headgasket to pit the surface of the block? I had it milled down .004 because of that crap. It's also why I switched to a fel-pro gasket, it doesn't look like it'll do it like the factory one did.

[180fan]

yeah cuz I too am about to do a headgasket job on my SR. I've got a Greddy 1.2mm metal headgasket and was about to install it and was basically gonna do a FSM based install of the gasket and I've never heard of using gasket maker.

[Hijacker]

something i saw a guy from signal auto doing. at the time i was thinking "wow! that's a good idea" forgetting that a properly sealed head gasket is strong enough by itself