Three ideas for gasket makers

I’m not old, but I am a certain age … meaning I started on engines driving the rear wheels with lots of under-hood room to work. That was good, because engine sealing was, in a word, terrible. Owners were frequently told to live with oil leaks and usually left water pump issues until coolant poured out of the weep hole. We changed a lot of gaskets, especially the water pump, intake and exhaust manifold, along with the usual head issues. Sealing surfaces were generally terrible, as were the replacement parts. Small block Chevy heads, for example, used to ship with as-cast exhaust manifold ports, with no machining at all. As a result, gaskets were thick, full of asbestos and burned out frequently. Water pumps were similar. New parts were rare and the reman units I saw frequently needed a little dressing with a file or emery paper to clean up the sealing surfaces. Just to be sure, we used a lot of Permatex #2, which worked well enough in those under stressed engines. I once used a brown paper bag from the grocery store to make a water pump gasket on a 258 AMC six … with no problem at all. Engines today of course are tighter, hotter and are much better machined. They’re also packed so tightly under the hood that a lot of water pump jobs are done by feel as much as sight. So here are my ideas for the gasket companies.

Where the dowels are tiny or nonexistent, it’s hard to make sure the gasket is aligned when you can’t see it properly. How about adding two studs and nuts to replace two of the bolts? Then you could thread them in, then slide the gasket onto the front cover certain that you won’t misalign it. With torque to yield head bolts, it common to ship fasteners with gaskets so we know it can be done.

Put a little sealant in one of the layers of a multilayer gasket with enough porosity in the outer layers that it extrudes out when the gasket is torqued up. This would prevent techs from doping the gasket with so much goo that the stuff ends up floating around the cooling system or crankcase. The rattle cans help, but then my hands are a red sticky mess for the duration of the job … put in in the gasket instead.

Add a thread chasing tap or two with the gasket. For the water pump, for example, add cheap, soft metal two-flute bottoming taps with long shanks and simple “T”-handles. Who has time to measure then set up a tap to chase threads? We end up giving the holes a quick blast with an air gun and hope. Thread chasing is ideal for cheap offshore taps and since they don’t need to be hardened like a thread cutting tool … the shanks could twist a little rather than breaking off in the hole. Another option? Supply bolts or studs with relief ground in the ends to accommodate any leftover crud in the bolt holes. With butter soft aluminum blocks and front covers, torque values are low … if a bolt or two bottoms prematurely, they’ll click all right, but with no clamping force.

Would you pay a little more for a gasket set with these features? We would win it back in time saved and comebacks reduced or eliminated, I’m sure. And for any gasket makers out there who want to try it, my current headache is a 1981 vintage 3.5 Rover V-8 … and nothing leaks like a British engine!