Date:         Wed, 19 Mar 2003 10:19:09 -0500
Reply-To:     Ed Carroll <ecarroll@MAINE.RR.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Ed Carroll <ecarroll@MAINE.RR.COM>
Subject:      Speaking of head gaskets
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I was interested to read the thread of Mark Vermillion's head gasket problems recently, since it was a pretty good thread with lots of tips about surface prep and gasket/head reassembly. Too bad I was away from e-mail and on my back in the garage for three days reassembling the gaskets and heads, or I might have learned something valuable.

I was bummed to see Boston Bob's brief treatise on deburring the water jacket and putting sealant on the inside of the gasket as well. Somehow I had missed this in my research, and I paused for quite a while when I had everything clean and ready to reassemble, searched my notes from the list, read the Bentley and Haynes and the magazine article from the Vanagon.com site, and decided that while it seemed like common sense I would not put sealant on the inside. None of the sources said to, so I went by the books. (Now I see from Ben Huot's site that he says VW says to use sealant on the inside.)

I inspected the water jacket thoroughly, cleaned the mating surface with brake cleaner and used Scotch-Brite and then fine emory cloth. There was one divot on a jacket surface that looked like a little tool whack from some earlier repair work. More of a dimple really, and I generally did not want to work the jackets over too hard as I was concerned that messing with them might make them worse than I found them. There was no other pitting.

The heads themselves had minor pitting, and I smoothed a thin coat of JB Weld over them, sanded them smooth and re-cleaned any residue. Since the engine is in the van and the van is on stands, it was a PITA working at 3/4's arm's length over my head on my back, yet since I saw no way to put sealant on the head side of the gasket before putting it in place without making a mess of the sealant bead, I had to put the gaskets in place and do my best to put the black silicone that came with my gasket kit on neatly. A little work with a popscicle stick and I was confident that it was a continuous bead without any great danger of splooging inward.

The head that needed the most prep work had an exisiting gasket with a semi-obvious inch and a half crack of dried out fatigue that went all the way through, but would only open to daylight if you pried the edges of the inner seal apart a little. The most amazing thing was to find that one of the aluminum cylinder seals inside that head had become weirdly distorted at some point. It was still flat and had apparently worked as a seal to the cylinder, but it was out of round by about 3/8 inch -- like an "O" with a flat spot. Its shape was clearly marked by the carbon deposit on the combustion chamber portion of the head, though there was no sign that the cylinder had been misfiring or even leaking there, and the van didn't run like it had caused any real problem. The head cleaned up fine, the cylinder was fine, and the new rings seated just fine. There was no real corrosion or pitting inside the rim in the heads.

So here's a question: The heads are on, and after 100 or so turns around the tightening sequence I still need to check the final torque once more before continuing the reassembly. Should I take them off to re-check the water jackets and put sealant on the inside? I think not, of course, unless there is someone out there vehement about the importance of goop as lube ...

Ed Carroll
87 Weekender