gasket removal?

I know how to remove old gasket material. #1 spray with some Permatex gasket remover. #2 Scrape with butter knife with broken off and sharpened tip #3 wire wool till surface clean...

WELL! I saw an air tool at Harbor Freight the other day. It was about the same size as a mini-Die Grinder. It was a gasket remover... looked sort of like a thin chisel coming out of the end of the thing and it said it would NOT repeat NOT hurt the mating surface. I already had a basket full of stuff I didn't need and REALLY wanted to try the thing but waffled thinking about the machine gun like damage to a cylinder or engine case, etc., I could do with this thing.

Has anyone ever used an air gasket remover tool? What are your thoughts? Could it be used safely? Would it end the tedious hours of scraping? Will my life be perfect if I owned one?????? HELP! I am looking for an excuse to buy one...

wiredgeorge wrote:

HELP! I am looking for an excuse to buy one...

I say you should purchase it for a evaluation of it for
this site and any others that you are a member of. Then it might be a tax write off too.
OR write the company/ manf. and tell them you want to evaluate it for the above mentioned sites. If it's a good product, sales will sky rocket for them;)
Pat

I've seen the tool you are speaking of WG..looks a bit gimmicky to me. If you really want to make gasket removal easy, purchase some plastic bristle rol-loc discs made by 3M and use it with a right angle die grinder. I have used them many times while working on cars and heavy trucks, however you do have to make sure you have a way to keep the residue from going all over the place. Another magnificent tool I recently discovered is a gasket scraper that uses a bit similar to a brake lathe bit. First time I used it I was amazed how cleanly and efficiently it removed the material with minimal effort.

I have seen the tool, a friend bought one like it, dont waste your money on it, he got it to use on a engine rebuild, after we messed with it for about an hour we gave up on it and it will marr the surface.

Nothing scrapes a gasket off, like a little "elbow grease". Sometimes you have to do it the old fashioned way. It's like waxing with a machine, and waxing by hand. Takes a little more work by hand, but well worth it.

Anyone who's scraped an old base gasket off a cylinder knows true patience.

PS - The butterknife trick works really good. Settle in for a while though...still ain't gonna be quick.

What pals you guys are! I was looking for someone to tell me that this gizmo would work great... Removing gaskets sucks and is the most tedious part of any rebuild... a GIZMO makes life soooo much more fun but this gizmo looked like it would be fatal to a gasket surface... oh well... back to scraping with a broken off butter knife. I do have some of the scotch pads and have used them in place of fine wire wheels on one of my cut off tools... I get scared when using power tools on a gasket suface... even the not so abrasive ones. Anyway, my tool-lust subsided a bit yesterday as I bought a new valve lapping tool. It has a suction gizmo where you pull up on a knob and it is supposed to lock the suction cup on the valve like it was glued on... I paid $30 for the darn thing plus shipping so I hope they weren't kidding. I have some valve lapping to do and this comes in second right after gasket scraping!

You can get Scotch-Brite discs that attach to a die grinder and should be safe on aluminum (they use aluminum-oxide as abrasive). I'm not sure if Harbor Freight has them, but if they don't I'd imagine that your local auto paint supply store could track them down.

Just be sure to turn down the air pressure -- running at half-speed you should be fine.

I picked up a "kit" of Scotch-Brite discs @ a garage sale for $1.00 :woohoo: It came with about 100 different pads for lack of better word. And the attachment to a power drill. Works great!!

I use to use a wire wheel on a drill to do mine, but I found out that gasket removale kit from the matco tool guy does it a whole lot fast.well worth $22.00

What is in this Matco kit?

mysticwolf wrote:

I use to use a wire wheel on a drill to do mine, but I found out that gasket removale kit from the matco tool guy does it a whole lot fast.well worth $22.00

Yeah, details! Gotta link?