Homemade gaskets?

I got to thinking about the possible problems with compression (torque) against the gasket if a homemade one was used.

I think it partially involves the original thickness of the gasket and how much the torque will compress it, particularly if a pre-compressed material is used. The head nuts on the 750 are only torqued to 29ftlbs after all, and I've seen water pumps on older cars with bolts torqued to more then that, using simple paper fiber gaskets without problems.

I've been told that the base gasket is originally about .6mm, and if a pre-compressed fiber material is used at about that thickness, I don't see a problem? Arguements?

Regardless of gasket used, I think you need to re torque the head after the first full heat up/cool down cycle. I keep reading about head gaskets that don't need it but I don't believe it.

polkat wrote:

I've been told that the base gasket is originally about .6mm,

I dimly recall the gaskets in my Athena set were in that ballpark which I measured at around .026". The N8904 stuff was a shade thicker at about .031". I figured the compressed final thickness difference is proabably a few thousadths which is negligible.

The base gasket wouldn't typically be 30 thou thick. The OEM thickness is much closer to 20 thou. Most gasket manufacturers produce material in great number of thicknesses. Interface Solutions (one of the more reputable brands) has a variety of thicknesses going from 15 thou up by roughly 5 thou increments to 60 thou or thicker.

If you use a thicker material than stock, you will lose a small amount of compression. For every 5 thou, you lose roughly .1 compression.

I measured a piece of the old gasket to see what compression had done to it, and it measured out at exactly .020" I'm guessing that a new piece of pre-compressed gasket material that is at that thickness, or perhaps a few thousandths thicker should work. With todays gas I'm not too concerned with a loss of a few tenths of compression.

I'm also wondering about making a head gasket from copper. Would there be a negative side to that?

I might get yelled at, but I'm going to ask a question.

For the amount of times you change these types of gaskets, why not just buy some? They're not exactly expensive.

T_Dub wrote:

I might get yelled at, but I'm going to ask a question.

For the amount of times you change these types of gaskets, why not just buy some? They're not exactly expensive.

The reason I made one after the new one I put in during the rebuild failed was because I didn't want to wait two weeks to order another one from kawi. The only other problem with ordering one from kawi is you don't know how old it is. It may be new in the package, but it could have been on a shelf quite a while.... after all, these bikes are 30 years old.:ohmy:

I second what bountyhunter said, (and it turns out that I had some M8094 laying around). Therefore, why pay for something I can make for free?

Unless it's an emergency, why bother going to all that trouble when real gaskets are cheap and fit perfectly?

TerryK wrote:

Unless it's an emergency, why bother going to all that trouble when real gaskets are cheap and fit perfectly?

My answer was this: I bought a "new" gasket rebuild kit to do the rebuild and the base gasket failed almost immediately (withing the firrst two hours running time). It hardened, cracked and disintegrated requiring me to tear the whole engine down to the rods again and I was really mad. At that point, I didn't trust "new old stock" gaskets since I could not tell their age or quality by looking. So, I bought new (very strong) gasket material and cut my own for the base gasket. The whole engine top end gets built up on that gasket, and I wasn't going to risk another one failing again.

For the record, it was an Athena gasket set that failed and the gasket material looked fine to me (not dried or old) but the base gasket failed instantly. A Kawi gasket might be OK, but how do you know how old it is?