Gasket paper

[rock_rebel]

Rather than wait 1+ weeks for the dealer to order a crankcase gasket I decide to buy some gasket paper at a local auto supplies store. Should I also use glue for this or attach it the same way as a stock gasket? I made sure it was the same or similar thickness as stock but I want to be completely sure its going to work and not have oil leaking around the edges later. Thanks.

[centuryghost]

Dry gaskets all the way.

If you have cleaned the surfaces correctly and didn't make any scratches when scraping the old stuff off, you should have no problems.

[The Buddha]

You can use a beer carton ... just sand off the print ... and yes dry, though gasket soaks oil by the time you use it, it will swell with oil and hence seal up better.
Cool.
Buddha.

[noworries]

Me 'ol Dad, who - as a Child of the Depression -wouldn't spend a cent on motor parts if he didn't have to, was sworn on to home made gaskets. With paper gaskets he showed me to cut a piece a bit bigger than the component, place the paper over the component face and the either tap around the perimeter of the paper covering the component with a small hammer or the handle of a scredriver or rub it with a carpenter's pencil - thus showing a perfect shape to cut out complete with bolt hole positions. He would always give a paper gasket a splodge of oil before installation.
The old bugger would even make head gaskets using this weird black, thick material that he was able to buy. I've got a horrible feeling that it had asbestos threads in it! Me? Thesedays I just go to the shop and buy a gasket.

[tt_four]

When I used to make them I'd rub a thin layer of oil on the engine cover, then press it onto the gasket paper and pull it off. It would leave an imprint of the piece you wanted to cut out. Then I could just go at it with an exacto knife and a hole punch. I didn't put extra oil on it, but it had a little on it from putting the engine cover on it.

[noiseguy]

+1

I keep gasket paper around for exactly this reason, though I've heard you can use any old cardboard.

That headgasket material was probably fibreglass reinforced... material is still sold today. I'm impressed; a headgasket would be complex to make. For that, you'd cut outside shape, punch holes for bolts, then torque it down. Remove head; the crush from the head and block leaves imprints to cut out. I remember dad doing this once, restoring an old Jaguar... good luck finding gaskets for that thing in the 80's in a small town.

Sharpie marker can be used to coat bottom of part for pattern transfer to gasket material if part is small enough.

Old bullet casings (expended!!!) make good hole punches for gasket paper.

[noworries]

Blimey, Noiseguy, the old bullet casing idea is brilliant. Me Dad is probably jumping up and down in that garage on the otherside of the Pearly Gates with frustration that he never thought of the idea! He used to use a screwdriver or that horsey hoof thing on a pocket knife or one of Mum's kitchen knives to make gasket holes. His first job after school was helping in a private DC producing power plant in a college in Ireland and I don't think he ever really recovered from that mechanical environment. As a kid, I can remember him confidently reboring and replacing just one piston in a 4-cylinder motor,cheerfully  installing an on-off swithch to replace a buggered voltage regulator on an Austin (u flipped the switch when u cld smell the battery boiling) and happily cutting the floor out of a car to reach the bell-housing bolts during a road-side clutch replacement. In life, I've frequently had to supress such tendencies in myself

[Big Rich]

You can use a beer carton ... just sand off the print ... and yes dry, though gasket soaks oil by the time you use it, it will swell with oil and hence seal up better.
Cool.
Buddha.

Instead of a beer carton (or cereal box, etc) you could try the cardboard on the back of tablets of paper. For a gasket that is just too big, look on the bottom of a calendar- those big desktop sized ones.

For re record: I've never had the best luck with home made gaskets. Always seemed to drip a little. But I would use one as a short term solution since a "fresh" paper gasket doesn't need scraped off after a week or two.

[noiseguy]

My mechanical experiences were heavily influences by summers on grandparents farm. If you needed a bolt, that meant you went to the barn and shuffled through boxes of old bolts till you found something close. Then, depending on how close, you drilled / ground / washered / tapped until it fit the application at hand. Gaskets weren't worth driving to town for. Riveting, welding, cutting. All the good basic fab stuff.