Ok, I wanted to wait until my friend had 20K miles on his headgasket before posting this, I'm not sure if its been 20K miles yet but it has been over a year and a half.

A few years ago I sold my friend my 85 944. It has been pretty reliable for him but it has left him stranded. It also had a ton of vacuum leaks, didn't idle smoothly, and had no low end power. A little over a 1.5 years ago he blew the headgasket and wanted to spend as little money as possible repairing it.

So against my advice he spent $30 on a headgasket, $6 on a tube of permatex ultra copper gasket maker, $6 on JB weld, and after some convincing by me, $8 on a new cam tower gasket (he was going to use the gasket maker for that!)

He coated the ISV in JBweld and also used it to repair cracks in the venturi hoses.

We decked the head for free (at the time I worked at a machine shop) and spent the day putting the car together. We used the gasket maker for the exhaust and intake manifold gaskets, the rear cam tower gasket, and the water pipe housing (what do you call that on the cylinder head..)



I was skeptical of all this (even though I've used the gasket maker in the past and it has never failed) but 1.5 years later and nearly 20K miles and his car runs like a top with perfect compression, no vacuum, coolant, or oil leaks. Pretty much a complete head gasket job for $50!



http://www.permatex.com/products/Aut...sket_Maker.htm


so the gist is .. if your in a pinch and need to get your car running instead of waiting for new intake / exhaust gaskets etc (or if you just don't have the money for the proper gaskets) this stuff will work as a short term solution.


mike

 

I dont think we need to give Lart any more ideas about Mexi-rigging his stuff. J/K!!!! Dont have me whacked!!

 

LOL.. I was telling him the entire time how -rigged I thought it was. I thought it would last maybe a few thousand miles .. I'm particularly suprised he doesn't have any exhaust leaks what so ever after all this time... just felt like sharing it with the list

btw: I did end up getting paid by my ex-boss. He was a douche but at least he paid up after I threatened to call the dept. of labor.

 

The Copper is better for really hot stuff like exhaust gaskets (downstream of the manifold). What you really want for other engine parts is the Ultra Grey. This is the same stuff as "Hondabond", but just at a much more reasonable price (Honda dealers want about $17 for a tube). It has excellent sealing qualities, adhesiveness, and resistance to automotive fluids. I've sealed numerous leaks from the outside, and replaced entire gaskets with it, all with great results, even with long term racing use. Heck, I even used it as strictly an adhesive to glue a Koni emblem in my engine bay on two cars. It has proven itself time and time again for me on various makes of street cars, as well all of our race cars that I've used it on. I even once had a car where the upper radiator hose flange was held on only by this stuff (I had taken the bolts out and couldn't get it off, and then forgot to put them back in)... it held up perfectly for a month of turbocharged abuse before it even started leaking, even though it was completely lacking two bolts that were supposed to be torqued down, and I had tried to pull it apart earlier.

I use the Copper for exhaust parts, Black for areas that I specifically do not want a strong adhesion, and Ultra Grey for everything else. Something to be aware of is that some of these can degrade and get inside your engine... it's not really a concern with Ultra Grey because of it's adhesiveness, but I once used the high-temp Red stuff on an oil pan gasket, and aside from providing a crappy long-term seal, the portion of it that squeezed out eventually separated and got sucked up by the oil pickup, partially clogging it. No wonder the factory recommended the Ultra Grey for that job instead.

 

For the front and rear water jackets, I don't even bother buying the Porsche gaskets, I just bought a large roll of gasket paper and I cut out my own. It's the same thing! I suppose a cam tower gasket could also be cut out but for $8 I'd rather just buy it and not have to cut out such a large gasket. The paper would work for the intake too, maybe a little copper coating could help. But for the exhaust, no paper for you!

Again just another option. Clearly copper works everywhere, but paper could definitely be easier in some spots. Thanks for the info!