china wall sealant??

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My method........For what it's worth. :)

Remove tabs on head gasket.
Clean area with lacquer thinner, NOT brake cleaner .....Then do it again.
Smear of your choice of sealant around the water ports.
Small bead of sealant at head/china wall junction.
High tack spray on underside of China rail gasket to keep it in place.
Another small bead of sealant in the same place as the first, but with the china rail gasket in place.
Lay the intake down and loosely install.
Wait and hour and torque it to spec.

No leaks for me.
 
I never smear sealant around the water ports. Just in the corners where the gaskets come together. My son "had" an engine built once and they did that. We ended up having to reseal the intake for a vacuum leak. It wound up standing the intake off the surface.
I've seen that before I think it's a Chevy thing
 
Do you guys worry about the temperature in your garage/shop etc., when applying the sealant?

This time of the year in my garage, it can be 50 or 30 degrees. I need to get my water pump housing/water pump/oil pan sealed up in the upcoming weeks and I have wondered if the temp will affect the sealant curing properly.
Thanks
 
I just go adjust the thermostat for the garage heater til I'm comfortable and it's good. Nothing to do with garage temp based on sealant but rather based on me, and whoever is out there with me. I do keep it warm enough to prevent condensation on anything metal
 
I don’t let it ever get under 60 degrees in my shop. I don’t like what condensation does to my tools and engines. Only time my engines see cooler temps than that is at the racetrack
 
so the right stuff only comes in one flavor?






View attachment 1716210724

You have to be careful where you use that stuff. The lid to my sheet metal cross-ram is sealed with that stuff. I spent hours trying to remove the lid....with zero success. I don't think it needs the bolts.

hemi crossram linkage 4.jpg
 
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Definitely, chk the label, there will be temp ranges.
Do you guys worry about the temperature in your garage/shop etc., when applying the sealant?

This time of the year in my garage, it can be 50 or 30 degrees. I need to get my water pump housing/water pump/oil pan sealed up in the upcoming weeks and I have wondered if the temp will affect the sealant curing properly.
Thanks
 
You have to be careful where you use that stuff. The lid to my sheet metal cross-ram is sealed with that stuff. I spent hours trying to remove the lid....with zero success. I don't think it needs the bolts.

I use black RTV, the store brand. I don't use the right stuff, because I want to get the intake back off without breaking it.

This is why I like Black Permatex. Right stuff can be too good in some applications.
 
Grey was mentioned Ford/Motorcraft had a good gray back in the day...I imagine its the same stuff...it dried nice didnt leak etc.
 
A lotta customer oil leaks were caused by goop .
If all gasket surfaces are properly clean, tin surfaces ( pans, valve covers, etc) with volcano cones where fasteners have distorted the metal, - pound them flat.
Factories didn't use goop, in fact, silicon has a very low Cofriction, and if the " bond" to whatever surface breaks cuz someone goes around "snugging" pan bolts, will very likely break that bond/seal to whatever surface, squeeze out, or turn to jelly, and leak.
GM tried using silicon (GMS), orange ****, turned into one of the biggest recalls GM ever had.
Replacing the silicon goop on trans pans. Oil pans, valve covers, everything gooped got a replacement gasket.
3M weatherstrip glue ( contact cement ) to hold gasket in place, pea size dab Right Stuff where gaskets meet/overlap.
That's it.
Smear silicon on each side of the gasket, watch it squeeze out.

Felpro brought out a gskt set to use with alum manifolds with the cork end gaskets 1/2? as thick as the originals that folks found too thick.
These gskts are also easily trimmed with an zacto knife to match ports.
Use these proper gskts insteada chugging a maybe in-adequate bead of jelly, if properly placed without pins.
Folks here now are re-doing the silicon china walls.
Tossed all my "RTV" in the trash.
With Right Stuff, chugging a huge bead isn't nec.
Good luck .

P.S. we has a thread here not long ago about low oil pressure.
The oil pick-up screen was full of pieces of goop !
 
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Speaking of seals my buddy that owned the speed shop still laughs about this and it happened in the 1970’s. I started a love affair with Direct Connections sealer in a can with a brush for gluing intake manifold gaskets on. So my buddy a ford guy ordered a can for me and it came in four days later while I was there. When oped the box that was delivered and grabbed the can and went to throw it to me. The label on the can had peeled off some so he peeled it off some more. Ford Motor Company all over it. Lol
 
Speaking of seals my buddy that owned the speed shop still laughs about this and it happened in the 1970’s. I started a love affair with Direct Connections sealer in a can with a brush for gluing intake manifold gaskets on. So my buddy a ford guy ordered a can for me and it came in four days later while I was there. When oped the box that was delivered and grabbed the can and went to throw it to me. The label on the can had peeled off some so he peeled it off some more. Ford Motor Company all over it. Lol

Always found the ferd intakes the hardest to clean, now I know why.
That was nasty stuff .
 
This place is getting as bad as Moparts. Three page discussion on a five minute job. What’s next pinion angle and super stock springs
LOL! I agree 100%. Constant bickering and debate about processes and procedures that if you actually wrenched in your life you know what works without thinking about it. There's guys that were or are in the business, then there is everyone else.
 
Speaking of seals my buddy that owned the speed shop still laughs about this and it happened in the 1970’s. I started a love affair with Direct Connections sealer in a can with a brush for gluing intake manifold gaskets on. So my buddy a ford guy ordered a can for me and it came in four days later while I was there. When oped the box that was delivered and grabbed the can and went to throw it to me. The label on the can had peeled off some so he peeled it off some more. Ford Motor Company all over it. Lol
The Mercury Villager mini van was actually a Nissan, the dealer parts department would hand me parts labeled "Ford" Id open the box and a Nissan box was inside... talk about wasting paper and cardbord. Thing is Id lift the hood and you could see it was a 3 liter Nissan engine sitting there...
 
Some ppl say gaskets only, some say gaskets with rtv in corners, some like rtv only on china walls, some say right stuff, some say black, some say grey, some say ford rtv, some say rtv around coolant ports, some say goop went into oil pickup, goop clogged up thermostat, the more goop the better, billy bob joes engine seized up from goop, goop is needed if turbo'ed, don't use any goop, my stuff never leaks, I don't care if it leaks has to come apart anyway, on and on and on. Pretty obvious there is not going to be a consensus on this topic. Just a lot of I like to do it my way and everyone elses way is wrong.

But by all means carry on lets keep kicking the dead horse. Maybe someone will start threatening someone else and thread gets locked like in other threads.
 
Well i say RTV but I've been doing that for years...It works and its once and done if its done right. Its not really a debate about the guy who uses cork telling everyone else "you aint doing it right..." If you wrenched professionally you know what to do to avoid customer comebacks. Cork is crap on valve covers why wouldn't it also be crap on the china walls?
 
But lets talk about "has anyone ever screwed up sealing the water passages and have anti freeze leak into the lifter valley...?" ewww...dont wannaa do that LOL!

but thats the thing you are already there at the water passages just continue across the china wall with the sealant the cork always shifts or sucks in Im not sure what happens but they gaskets leak eventually
 
Yeah, we repeat all this **** to all you old fks to drive you nuts.
it certainly isn't meant to educate and help the young guns y'all worried about not being interested.
Yeah, these repeats are just for you.
To newbies, they're not repeats dontcha think, - maybe not ?
 
To a newbie all you have to do is have a china wall gasket slip or suck in on ya once and you'll never use them again...but by all means do it your way:)
 
Yeah, we repeat all this **** to all you old fks to drive you nuts.
it certainly isn't meant to educate and help the young guns y'all worried about not being interested.
Yeah, these repeats are just for you.
To newbies, they're not repeats dontcha think, - maybe not ?
Exactly, and just goes to show there is more than one way to skin a cat. I tried it all before reaching the method that works best for me. Isn’t that how we learn?
 
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