Re: Do you use sealant at the bottom of the cylind
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My machinist buddy, who is highly respected, thought that I should paint the figure eights with silver spray paint. The paint would stay soft, not let them rust as much, provide a seal, and provide me with time to dilly dally as I restored the vehicle.
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Hi,
Actually I've heard of using metallic spray paints as a sealer, too. In fact, we did that on the head gasket when I had to have an on-the-road emergency repair to a Ford 6-cylinder (it sucked in some screws and parts from the carb or air cleaner, of all things... made a racket but didn't damage anything...had to remove the head to get all the little bits out of the cylinders, fortunately no damage was done).
In that case, the mechanic had been a Ford commercial truck dealer and service facility for 30 years, seemed to really know what he was doing. He said he often used cheap metallic paint for head gaskets. There are dozens of trucks toodling around Oregon that he's worked on at one point or another. I was lucky to break down just a few miles from his shop!
My van continued running fine for as long as I owned it afterward (several years with a total of 160K+ miles, if I recall correctly), and kept on going for at least a few years beyond that I'm aware of.
So, your buddy may have given you really good advice. If the engine is all back together, I'd try it and after the first time it runs drop the sump to check carefully for any leaks. If the motor is still out of the car and relatively disassembled, so it wouldn't be too big a deal to do, I'd be tempted to take it back apart the rest of the way to use a different sealer, just to put my mind at rest.
In the past, I've used some spray on coppery head gasket sealer that would probably be good in this application, too. Thorough coverage with a sealer that sets up is what's most important. Not too think, or it will squeeze out, or possibly raise the sleeves more than the allowable .005" above the deck height. I'd avoid any silicon/RTV sealer that would likely squeeze out and chunk off around the edges, might get into the oil or coolant circuits and possibly cause problems.
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