OK - I'm not opposed to buying new head gaskets if I have to. But if it is totally unnecessary to do so that would be great. He is what I did. On a complete rebuild, I torqued down the heads onto a set of Fel-Pro print-o-seal head gaskets. After fully torqing them down, I decided to do a valve clearance test with modeling clay on the piston tops. So of course, the heads had to come off again. In days gone by, I would have just used an old set of head gaskets to take up the space between the head and block while doing a clay clearance test. I didn't do that and torqued down the new gaskets one time. My question is - since the motor was never fully assembled and ran. And therefore the print-o-seal stuff never melted from heat - is the head gasket OK to use? Or by torquing them down once, are they now just pretty wall hangers? Thanks - Eric J
If you don't install head gaskets at all, just think, you would never BLOW any!!! Warning: this is only a joke
If there is no damage to the fire rings and the gaskets are in otherwise good shape, they will be fine to reuse. It makes no difference if they have been on a running motor or not. However, if a fire ring is nicked or tweaked, I would replace. I had the heads off my last motor three times (not due to gasket issues BTW) and used the same set of gaskets each time. I wanted to see if it could be done. I never had a gasket failure with 270 lbs of cranking compression. There is nothing wrong with putting on a fresh set either since they are cheap enough. It's your call.
<-- admission time I once put a set of 302 heads on BASS ACKWARDS (didn't realize it until I went to put the a/c retainer bolt in - no helicoil). It was 2:00 Sunday night when I realized that you could actually put the heads on the wrong side eek: ). Having to use the car the next day (no way around it), I took the heads off, swaped them and re-torqued the heads 15/20 FtLbs over the initial torque. In my particular case, it worked fine (standard issue Felpro gaskets). If I would've had access to a new set of gaskets at the time, I would've put new ones on.
Thanks guys. Seems like a split decision from the board. For the $35-$40 for new ones, I think I'll play it safe and do it right by putting on new ones. I don't really want to have to pull it apart again if it fails. Although it would probably be OK with a little more torque on the head bolts, even at 10.5:1 compression. At least now I'll have a nice clean set to hang on the wall and use for valve clearance tests. Or maybe an ebay item .......... :evilsmile Eric J
