couple quick head gasket questions
Turbo Mini Forums

just received my gaskets for my clubby, the head gasket is covered in a sticky wax coating, never had one like this before... i wanna clean it off is it there for a reason? (copper hg)

i have done many head gaskest before but recently been told about a method what u think? :-

torque down the head as normal but fire up the engine and allow to idle for 1 minute without any water.... then allow it to fully cool before re torquing the head

its an unleaded 1275 mg engine if it make any difference... cheers

Yes i moved to the darkside

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i have seen a copper head gasket with a coating on it before, left it on when fitted car ran fine as for "torque down the head as normal but fire up the engine and allow to idle for 1 minute without any water.... then allow it to fully cool before re torquing the head" how is this any diffrent than once done run car for X minuets then let it cool down and re- troque the head basically the same but i would do it my self (no water)

Drives
-Ford S-max Mk2 Ecoboost
-Rover 100 VVC #2 - track project

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Crap. Dont run it without water

Paul

I seriously doubt it!

cheers guys, running without water imo is asking for trouble with a new gasket or not

just asking the experts

Yes i moved to the darkside

Instagram @jdm_brett

my puntuation is as good as my spelling.

Drives
-Ford S-max Mk2 Ecoboost
-Rover 100 VVC #2 - track project

Searching is all you need on TurboMinis

I would leave the coating on the gasket.It may be there to prevent minor copper corrosion, but it cant do any harm anway.
I,m very old and when I was working on A series for a living we always slathered grease on both sides of all gaskets before assembly. The theory appeared to be that the grease allowed the gasket to settle in place as you tightened everything up.I still do it and I haven,t had a HG problem with either of the two turbo engines I am running, at 16 psi .

I have heard of people coating gaskets with several light coats of spray engine paint to increase the reliability of gaskets, has any one else heard this? Think I read it in a tuning the mini book. Could this be what the coating is?

BS

its a silicon rubber cpating that helps reduce leaks. The AF460 (copper gasket) has the exact same coating as the BK450.

Year's back the BK450 gaskets had this tacky coating on one side, pain in the ass when it came to changing head gaskets but they sealed well. The recent head gaskets I have been buying have been lacked the coating! A sign of the times no doubt.

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