I'm putting a Q-Jet on my Skylark. I can tell from the pitting on the existing heads and used intake that I bought, that the stamped steel gasket isn't going to make a good seal. I have my idea about what to use (#2 Perma-Tex!), but I'm interested in what some of you guys have used to guarantee a good seal is made...and then can get the manifold off later, without using a crowbar. We used a product called "Copal-Tight" (sp?) when I was in the US Navy to seal high pressure (600+ PSI, 480[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]+[/FONT]) steam lines. What's your recipe? I'd prefer something like Fel-Pro uses on SBC engines, which is a more compliant gasket, but I don't know if something like that is produced for Buicks. A little edacation is in order.
How pitted is it? I normally use a nice thick coat of Permatex High Tack. Then a thin bead of Ultra black around the water ports
That sounds right. I just want to be sure, because I've had one bad experience with steel shim head gaskets on a rebuild (a SBC 327 in 1977, so maybe not a fair comparison, especially with compression pressure Vs cooling system pressure). The factory just used the gasket, but the surfaces were "perfect" when new.
On HP steam flanges and joints we used keypaste or keytite. Its black and water based but dries and seals hard as a rock. Personally Ive been using Loctite anaerobic sealant with 100% success. It comes in 2, 6 or 10Oz cartridges for a caulking gun. Will not harden until pulled down. being anaerobic means no cure with oxygen present, but remove the O and it cures like locktite on bolts and pipe fittings. theres also anaerobic Teflon pipe dope. Works great but a tad messy to clean up. Last but not least is ALINCO... used on turbine horizontal joints. Heat and steam turn the TRIPLE BOILED LINSEED OIL into a rock hard carbon film. Id just use the locktite grape jelly and forget about failures. Bill in TR http://www.rotatingmachinery.com/pdf_files/newsletter-v2-2005.pdf
It's just pitted around the water passages. I've convinced myself that the gasket isn't going to conform to that pitting, so I want a seal that will conform. The pits appear to be maybe a few thousandths deep.
So... Another Steve here on the board was a "hole snipe". Copaltite... Damn good stuff. Try Loctite 518. Works very good on that heat riser seal for the choke bi-metallic coil cup.
Not sure I understand about the heat riser seal. Do you mean the seal at the head to intake manifold interface? When I bought the car, the heat riser flap was long gone, but the holes were plugged. As a side note, but very important, I'm having trouble threading the intake manifold bolts back into the heads. The tips of the bolts have the threads rounded over. They came out of the heads that way when I removed them. I guess I can go in with a plug tap and clean up the threads in the heads, but something just isn't right. The bolts came out requiring a lot more torque than I would have expected. That's why I'm asking, as I had tried to screw them in afterwards, in case the running torque would have been too high. I suspect that the threads in the heads are boogered. I can get a bottoming tap (I only have a starting tap) and clean the threads up. Any suggestions? I have a mechanical background, worked as a mechanic for many years, and a mechanical engineer for about the same amount of time, but this is a new one on me.
I've used hylomar blue on a 383 mopar engine a friend had in a 67 charger, it worked fairly well. For the intake bolts, I would just chase the bolt holes and run a die over the bolts. If one had a burr on it going together, they both will coming apart.
Don't use any tap! Taps will actually cut away metal; Supposed to be used on NEWLY drilled, UNCUT holes. Use a thread chaser! Usually available in sets for commonly used sizes from NAPA, JEGS, Summit, etc.
You are correct, though I did use a starting tap anyway because I forgot about this. I used a .410 shotgun bore brush and Hoppe's #9 to clean the threads enough to get the bolts in. By the time I was done the bolts would thread in by hand. I also discovered that the bolts were a skosh too long, they were binding on the incompletely tapped holes in the heads at some locations, thus the boogered threads. I bought 2" bolts to replace the 2.25" original bolts. That left about 1/2" of threads mating inside the heads, which is plenty.
