Question? Ford 427 sideoiler service block

[RICK LAKE]

Michael C. Henry Mike I know on having to remove coatings they suck. Also that some of the gasket makers like Fel-Pro say not to use, I don't listen. I use Hi-Tac on all my head gaskets, both sides even the ones with the RTV embossed on them. I loc-tite all my bolts and studs. All my nuts are aircraft polylocs, grade 8 or higher. Any wet location hole, (waterpump, intake manifold, surge tank, or oil plugs) get teflon paste on the threads to stop seeping. Auto zone and Pep-boys sell sheets of gasket paper. I use the thick black stuff for all gaskets and hi-tac. All you need is the orginial gasket to pencil on the paper and cut out with a knife or razor blade. I use cork on the valve covers only and glue them to the valve covers with GM adhesive spray for weatherstrips. I tighten the valve covers down to 12 inch pounds on a 1/4" torque wrench and 1/8 turn after. no leaks from doing it this way You need to let all RTV's, Spray's, even loctite 24 hours to dry and set unless you can't. Alot of leaks happen from not doing this. The valve covers are the only thing that I remove from the motor more than once. See your machinist may not have had your manifold to check angles between block and heads, heads and manifolds, bottom of intake manifold and top of valley between cylinder banks. It's an easy thing to over look and causes a ton of problems after assembly. Those cheap angle measures are great for checking the head to manifold. I have seen 0 clearance on the top and 1/8" air gap on the bottom, and the motor is in the car already. O-BOY. Double gaskets glued togeather do work with a low pressure coolant system. About 5-7 psi anything more and you have cream in your motor and say bye-bye to the bearings. Use sprays on gaskets and only GRAY RTV on the other parts and let dry. Rick L.