Hi folks.
I am trying to replace the head gasket on an old marine gasoline
engine. (Palmer PW-27) The old gasket (which i made of unspecified
gasket material I had on hand) has blown out between the combustion
chamber and one of the head bolts after approximately 10 hours of use.

The engine is a one cylinder, 8ish HP, flat head-type, raw water cooled
engine, which I have been told has some internal parts made by
Wisconsin.

I have been unable to locate a factory gasket, and plan on making one.
Any suggestions for a suitable material would be helpful.

One thought I had was to try to incorporate a piece of flattened copper
wire around the perimeter of the combustion chamber with some gasket
material sealing up around the bolt holes and coolant passages. Any one
have any luck with this "hybrid" approach?

Thanks for any and all advice.
Andy Hall
Lynn, MA

On 10 Oct 2005 10:34:04 -0700, andy wrote:

I have been unable to locate a factory gasket, and plan on making one.
Any suggestions for a suitable material would be helpful.

I've read of, but never tried, using sheet copper of the appropriate
thickness (0.30"? 0.50"?), and cutting it to be the new gasket. Anneal
before installing.

One thought I had was to try to incorporate a piece of flattened copper
wire around the perimeter of the combustion chamber with some gasket
material sealing up around the bolt holes and coolant passages. Any one
have any luck with this "hybrid" approach?

Sealant on a head gasket sounds like your next point of failure. Lots
of differential expansion/contraction going on right around there, due
to all the temperature differences.

Dave Hinz

On 10 Oct 2005 10:34:04 -0700, "andy"
wrote:

Hi folks.
I am trying to replace the head gasket on an old marine gasoline
engine. (Palmer PW-27) The old gasket (which i made of unspecified
gasket material I had on hand) has blown out between the combustion
chamber and one of the head bolts after approximately 10 hours of use.

The engine is a one cylinder, 8ish HP, flat head-type, raw water cooled
engine, which I have been told has some internal parts made by
Wisconsin.

I have been unable to locate a factory gasket, and plan on making one.
Any suggestions for a suitable material would be helpful.

One thought I had was to try to incorporate a piece of flattened copper
wire around the perimeter of the combustion chamber with some gasket
material sealing up around the bolt holes and coolant passages. Any one
have any luck with this "hybrid" approach?


Some small engine aftermarket suppliers sell the metal clad asbestos
cored head gasket material to make these. You might try the local
small engine shop and see if they have some in there catalog. I forget
if Oregon (used to be Silver Streak) has it. I'm pretty sure that
Stens used to carry it but I've not got a recent catalog to check.

Wayne Cook
Shamrock, TX
http://members.dslextreme.com/users/waynecook/index.htm

andy wrote:

Hi folks.
I am trying to replace the head gasket on an old marine gasoline
engine. (Palmer PW-27) The old gasket (which i made of unspecified
gasket material I had on hand) has blown out between the combustion
chamber and one of the head bolts after approximately 10 hours of use.

The engine is a one cylinder, 8ish HP, flat head-type, raw water cooled
engine, which I have been told has some internal parts made by
Wisconsin.

I have been unable to locate a factory gasket, and plan on making one.
Any suggestions for a suitable material would be helpful.

One thought I had was to try to incorporate a piece of flattened copper
wire around the perimeter of the combustion chamber with some gasket
material sealing up around the bolt holes and coolant passages. Any one
have any luck with this "hybrid" approach?

Thanks for any and all advice.
Andy Hall
Lynn, MA


Here are some web sites of gasket makes.
http://www.cometic.com/
http://www.corteco-usa.com/
http://www.flatoutgroup.com/
http://www.scegaskets.com/
Contact them, some times they are very helpful.
Stan

andy wrote:

I am trying to replace the head gasket on an old marine gasoline
engine. (Palmer PW-27) The old gasket (which i made of unspecified
gasket material I had on hand) has blown out between the combustion
chamber and one of the head bolts after approximately 10 hours of use.

I would use Loctite 5205. That stuff is astonishing. I have used it as a
head gasket too.


Nick
--
Motor Modelle // Engine Models
http://www.motor-manufaktur.de

Make sure that your head and cylinder mating surfaces are flat. You can
lap the head on a flat plate or glass plate using wet/dry sandpaper,
ditto the cylinder. My old timer friend used to lap the head to the
cylinder of his Indian flathead twin, use aluminum paint, and then go
hill climbing. (Won too!!)

andy wrote:
Hi folks.
I am trying to replace the head gasket on an old marine gasoline
engine. (Palmer PW-27) The old gasket (which i made of unspecified
gasket material I had on hand) has blown out between the combustion
chamber and one of the head bolts after approximately 10 hours of use.

The engine is a one cylinder, 8ish HP, flat head-type, raw water cooled
engine, which I have been told has some internal parts made by
Wisconsin.

I have been unable to locate a factory gasket, and plan on making one.
Any suggestions for a suitable material would be helpful.

One thought I had was to try to incorporate a piece of flattened copper
wire around the perimeter of the combustion chamber with some gasket
material sealing up around the bolt holes and coolant passages. Any one
have any luck with this "hybrid" approach?

Thanks for any and all advice.
Andy Hall
Lynn, MA

In article .com,
"andy" wrote:

Hi folks.
I am trying to replace the head gasket on an old marine gasoline
engine. (Palmer PW-27) The old gasket (which i made of unspecified
gasket material I had on hand) has blown out between the combustion
chamber and one of the head bolts after approximately 10 hours of use.

The engine is a one cylinder, 8ish HP, flat head-type, raw water cooled
engine, which I have been told has some internal parts made by
Wisconsin.

I have been unable to locate a factory gasket, and plan on making one.
Any suggestions for a suitable material would be helpful.

One thought I had was to try to incorporate a piece of flattened copper
wire around the perimeter of the combustion chamber with some gasket
material sealing up around the bolt holes and coolant passages. Any one
have any luck with this "hybrid" approach?

Well, Idunno as I'd be super-trusting of the concept on a marine engine,
but I used to fix blown head gaskets on lawn mowers with a box of Cap'n
Crunch, rubber cement, and a piece of a roll of Reynold's Wrap tinfoil,
and for the big ones (10HP and up), a suitable length of copper wire
pulled out of 12/3 ROMEX cable and stripped.

Cut down the box to give you two chunks a bit larger than the head,
rubber-cement them together with the "cap'n artwork" to the inside, coat
the flats on both sides with rubber cement, wrap smoothly in tinfoil,
lay it on the top of the cylinder (was usually more stable than trying
to do it on the head) and use a ball-pien hammer to cut the gasket. Once
cut out, I'd rubber-cement the tinfoil and re-wrap with more tinfoil to
put metal over the cardboard edge anywher it's likely to encounter
"fire". Once done with that, for the big guys, I'd rubber-cement the
wire in place around the openings as needed, lapping the ends tightly
over each other, and then torque it down. For the smaller ones, the
tinfoil wrap was all that was needed.

Never had one needing a new head gasket afterwards (had reports of more
than a couple of them where the deck rusted away with the engine still
in "runs good" condition, though) so it must have worked fairly well

--
Don Bruder - - New Email policy in effect as of Feb. 21, 2004.
Short form: I'm trashing EVERY E-mail that doesn't contain a password in the
subject unless it comes from a "whitelisted" (pre-approved by me) address.
See http://www.sonic.net/~dakidd/main/contact.html for full details.

andy wrote:
Hi folks.
I am trying to replace the head gasket on an old marine gasoline
engine. (Palmer PW-27) The old gasket (which i made of unspecified
gasket material I had on hand) has blown out between the combustion
chamber and one of the head bolts after approximately 10 hours of use.

The engine is a one cylinder, 8ish HP, flat head-type, raw water cooled
engine, which I have been told has some internal parts made by
Wisconsin.

I have been unable to locate a factory gasket, and plan on making one.
Any suggestions for a suitable material would be helpful.

One thought I had was to try to incorporate a piece of flattened copper
wire around the perimeter of the combustion chamber with some gasket
material sealing up around the bolt holes and coolant passages. Any one
have any luck with this "hybrid" approach?

Thanks for any and all advice.
Andy Hall
Lynn, MA

Your choice of copper is the best "blow proof" material and Daves'
reminder to fully anneal it (each time you reuse it) is smart advice.
Depending on the final thickness you might want to try O-rings sized to
fit into clearance holes in the copper gasket. When you say raw
water-cooled does that mean fresh or salt water will be flowing thru it?
It so you should be aware of the possible galvanic action.

"andy" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi folks.
I am trying to replace the head gasket on an old marine gasoline
engine. (Palmer PW-27) The old gasket (which i made of unspecified
gasket material I had on hand) has blown out between the combustion
chamber and one of the head bolts after approximately 10 hours of use.

The engine is a one cylinder, 8ish HP, flat head-type, raw water cooled
engine, which I have been told has some internal parts made by
Wisconsin.

I have been unable to locate a factory gasket, and plan on making one.
Any suggestions for a suitable material would be helpful.

One thought I had was to try to incorporate a piece of flattened copper
wire around the perimeter of the combustion chamber with some gasket
material sealing up around the bolt holes and coolant passages. Any one
have any luck with this "hybrid" approach?

Thanks for any and all advice.
Andy Hall
Lynn, MA


This guy makes gaskets for just about anything. Diesels included. Antique
caterpillars are his specialty. Send him a paper pattern and tell him how
thick you want it. He suprised me by already having the one I needed made up
already. Guys will send him the pattern telling him what it's for and he
files the information away. So the next guy gets off real easy with the hard
part already done.

http://www.olsonsgaskets.com/

Thanks for all the replys!
Since the engine is currently installed in a small sailboat, I wanted
to minimze the time that the head was off the engine. I checked the
head for flatness, and it looked ok. The engine was reassembled using
more "automotive type" gasket material with high-tack on both sides,
hopefully this will hold up for the remaining few weeks of the season
here in Lynn. Once the boat is in the driveway, I will check the block
for flatness, and investigate sheet copper gaskets. I will also check
out the olson fellow for a replacement.

Thanks again for all the replys from copper to locktite to asbestos to
cap'n crunch +foil.

Best regards,
Andy Hall

"andy" wrote in message
oups.com...

Thanks for all the replys!
Since the engine is currently installed in a small sailboat, I wanted
to minimze the time that the head was off the engine. I checked the
head for flatness, and it looked ok. The engine was reassembled using
more "automotive type" gasket material with high-tack on both sides,
hopefully this will hold up for the remaining few weeks of the season
here in Lynn. Once the boat is in the driveway, I will check the block
for flatness, and investigate sheet copper gaskets. I will also check
out the olson fellow for a replacement.

Thanks again for all the replys from copper to locktite to asbestos to
cap'n crunch +foil.

Best regards,
Andy Hall

A material called clinger 1000 is supposed to work really well, and you can
cut one out in a few minutes.