head gasket

  • Thread starter Thread starter shiredevon
  • Start date Start date

shiredevon

Guest
i'm about to remove the head can i re-use the gasket or do i need to replace,
cheers
 
LiquidLAN said:
Shire, doesnt this bike have only a few hundred miles? Does that make a difference?

No - you might have been able to re-use them in the days of the copper gasket , the ones that you could re-anneal with a gas torch, but not now. Modern gaskets have sealants on the surface and are definitely a once only item.
 
Fibre material based gaskets should be used once only as they are designed to compress and form a permanent "set" once torqued up. They usually have a metal reinforcement skirting ring (fire ring) located within the gasket around the cylinder area to bite and form a gas tight seal which again makes the gasket a "once-only" use item. When released they do not expand and as all the compression is already used up, replacement is the only option.

Old fashioned Copper gaskets could be annealed and re-used typically up to three times because they worked differently as the copper formed a molecular bond with the mating faces when compressed.

To re-use a fibre based one is a bodge, you might be lucky and get away with it but you are really just asking for a breakdown (usually on a cold dark wet country lane in winter ).

Do it once, do it properly with new gaskets and then forget about it. :)
 
birdseye said:
No - you might have been able to re-use them in the days of the copper gasket , the ones that you could re-anneal with a gas torch, but not now. Modern gaskets have sealants on the surface and are definitely a once only item.

Pukmeister said:
Fibre material based gaskets should be used once

Bugger, thought that might have been the case, but having read his previous posting about it being low mileage, I thought it might be worth mentioning... you never know :nenau
 
Don't worry chaps, have ordered new one, by the way i charged the battery, and having joined the broken wires i turned on the ignition for the first time and it all lit up so it's looking promising, still waighting for the head to arrive.bit stuck without it, bike is in surprisingly good nick,
 


Back
Top Bottom