Cleaning engine mating surfaces

bountyhunter wrote: I crammed blue shop rags into the area where the rods come up and tucked them in at the edges.

Sorry but I'm not following you on the "tucked them in at the edges" part. Could you elaborate? I'm probably over thinking it.

Yet another question, this one in regards to replacement gaskets.

Has anyone heard of disastermotors.com? They have complete gasket kits for my model. I contacted them and Dave, the owner, assured me they are all the correct replacements and that they have used them on many customer rebuilds. Its about $65 found here ( www.disastermotors.com/products/kawasaki...-400-motorcycle-z400 ).

That could save me a lot of time and money in shipping costs if I can get them all from the same place rather than piece by piece from ebay.

Those gaskets are risky. Particularly the green base gasket. Athena makes gasket kits and uses green gasket material, and the material can't take the clamp load of the base gasket. I found out the hard way when the gasket extruded out of position on a GS1000 engine I built. At minimum get an OEM base gasket to supplement that kit.

Good to know. A NOS base gasket can be had for under $10 so I'll go ahead and do that. OEM appears to be a blue material from what I'm seeing on ebay.

I had cases split so cleaning was easier. I found that acetone on the left over gaskets really worked well. I applied as I worked and it softened and made removal easy. Also get a real scraper tool with a carbon steel blade. That also made it way easier than a hand held blade and even the smaller scrapers. The hand held and smaller scraper are hard to work with and easier to scratch surfaces. The screwdriver handle type 10" jobber was the ticket and easier to control. Also I found the base gasket to be the easiest to remove. the head and head cover gaskets need a slow methodical approach. Soak, scrap, soak scrape soak scrape..... R

I haven't found any chemical solutions that I (as a non-professional) can get and am happy within the last 25 years. When I was briefly in the aircraft engine overhaul world we had some great chemicals we could obtain from Safety Clean in 55 gallon drums that would dissolve absolutely all carbon, and VW pistons as well (presumably the Mg content in the alloy). I never knew the name of it, but it's presumably long gone in the US.
I use a combination of elbow-grease-based tactics nowadays. A piece of polycarbonate with a sharpened edge works well with soft gasket residue. I also use a piece of copper (not brass) sheet as a scraper when the gasket residue is hard or carbonized. I lastly use 3M Scotchbrite for final clean-up. Not the easiest method, not the fastest, and probably overkill in a lot of ways, but these seem to minimize the risk of scoring the mating surfaces.

i used a small knife when the wife was out shopping and a bit of wd40 to soften it

Ran by home depot today and grabbed some supplies. Ended up going with some Goo Gone for the gaskets and Simple Green Pro HD degreaser to soak the block and head in to loosen up the carbon and grime. I stuffed clean shop rags down into the cylinders of the crank and the camshaft chain hole and scraped off all the loose gasket material followed by a liberal application of goo gone to the remains with a brush. The block is currently soaking in a bucket so I'll go brush on that once a night and let is soak all week, hopefully I'll have some shiny engine parts by the end of the weekend!

I've never used it but hopefully when you pull the parts out of the simple green, the raw aluminum won't be charcoal black.

missionkz wrote: I've never used it but hopefully when you pull the parts out of the simple green, the raw aluminum won't be charcoal black.

I did some research before buying and the Simple Green Pro HD was designed for use one all metals (including aluminum) as opposed to the regular simple green which cannot be used on aluminum. There were many reviews of people using it on their aluminum engines so I've got my fingers crossed :whistle:

How are the engine studs removed? It would be immensely easier to clean the crankcase surface without them in the way.

My mix of degreaser, goo gone and brake cleaner soaking followed by a green scotch bright paint remover pad seems to be fairly efficient at cleaning off the old gasket material. The surfaces are slowly looking presentable for a new gasket.

Also do I need to sand the surface with fine grit sand paper? And do I need to grease the gasket or just apply it dry?

Well I love the 3M bristle pads that attach to a drill. They take off gasket very quick without taking too much aluminum off. Cleans the surface off without augmenting the flatness of the surface. I used the yellow one.