Just getting back into my head gasket job after taking a few weeks off due to a hand surgery. I polished the engine block with those 3M Roloc brushes. it's pretty darned clean but not "perfect". How clean does this really have to be? There aren't any really raised surfaces or anything or if there are it's so tiny.
engine block, how clean is clean enough?
- Thread starter mendozer
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19963.4lsr5
New member
I just removed the old gasket material with the 3m disks on my drill and wiped everything down with acetone.
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gamefreakgc
Elite Member
Yup, finger test is best. Unless of course the hand surgery makes that not a possibility, not sure what happened to your hand!
The iron block is less likely to be uneven than the softer aluminum heads. Did you have them resurfaced? I had a set of heads milled & hot tanked for $120, it's not that pricey and any machine shop can do it well.
gamefreakgc
Elite Member
It does look like you cleaned them off pretty good, I can't see any remaining gasket material. Another way to test is with a razor blade, run the blade across the surface and it should not catch anything, should glide perfectly over the surface.
while there are tiny imperfections, these are pitted or raised metal i think. The black you see is embedded in the iron. I could probably do a little better at corners and around the alignment pins but the razor glides fairly well on it. This is literally the most important part of this job so it has to be up to snuff!
19963.4lsr5
New member
Run an old headbolt or tap in all the headbolt threads in the block when you’re done with all the cleaning.
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That looks pretty good to me! I would use an air gun to blow any coolant out of the head bolt holes and run an old head bolt with good/clean threads through all the head bolt holes as well.
for sure on the headbolt. I tried blowing out as much crap as i could. I drained the plug on the passenger side and the thermostat on the driver's. Still has fluid in there and of course now the fluid has crap in it. I took a few passes pouring distilled water through a funnel into the channels and draining it out in passes and even helping it with compressed air. Hard to get it all. What I was going to do when I first hook everything back up was fill the radiator up with water and leave the lower hose disconnected for drainage. Then just run it the engine for a bit while keeping the hose hooked up to to fill neck so the block completely flushes clean before i put any coolant in there so all those nitty gritty crummy parts get out. That's typically how I flush. I have done the fill and run, drain x 3 but it takes too long. I want it spotless if I'm going through all this work.
That's good to know! I may wind up doing my head gaskets. Just pulled apart the intake manifold looking for a mystery coolant leak, and the leak may be a freeze plug on the firewall side... may have to pull the motor
