I've been scrambling to get my truck going this week. It always makes me crazy to find this stuff; 1/8" bead of orange RTV under a dried out gasket which was glued to the valve cover on top. I can't figure how someone can figure this is a good solution when a gasket is $10.
Hell I can't figure why some folks feel the need to use a half inch bead of the damned stuff on a new gasket. Found a "rope" of the stuff big around as my little finger and about 5 inches long in the gas tank of my 63 C-10. That was why it would just shut down every so often.
I had an off topic wagon that had blue RTV on every singles gasket and seal on the damn engine and transmission. It took six months of replacing a gasket then finding another that had the crap on it. You should have to pass a test before being allowed to buy RTV!
When I pulled the engine out of my brother's 4x4 after he blew a rod in it the oil pickup screen was full of red silicone that had broken off inside the engine and ended up in the pan. A friend of mine went to a Honda Car training center for an engine class years ago and the instructor had him hold his hand out and he squirted a dab of silicone on the end of his index finger and told the class that was enough for the whole engine. When I worked nights in a local independent parts house the two best sellers were blue Permatex and JB weld.
i tore down a pontiac 400 that some genius rtv'd the shit out of the tiny paper gasket between the oil pump and the block. it pretty much covered the oil feed hole which starved the front of the motor. the front 2 rods grenaded, i mean GRENADED, rods in pieces, it almost chewed the crank in half, busted holes in one cylinder, destroyed 1 head and snapped the cam into 3 pieces. this was a fresh full rebuild with about 100 miles on it.
Hah, that's nothing. Bud picked up a '66 Mustang for nickels. PO couldn't get it to run. Everything had RTV, even the compression fittings from the fuel pump to the carb. Although the gas tank looked new, it too was RTV welded to the trunk floor, ended up picking up a new gas tank, and pickup assembly. Spent about 2 hours just blasting the lines free of crud. Hell there was RTV on the brake components.
I filled a small rust hole last minute in the a pillar of my old 83 Cutlass right before I painted it with RTV. I always figured I was going to hell for that, held up for quite a while though, oddly enough.
WRONG. two well machined surfaces designed for no gasket don't need one to seal. a sbc is not designed as such. not enough bolt pressure to keep a metal/metal surface leak free
You may go to hell for owning one but not for patching one with silicone. If you have the chance to tear into a later model engine you may be surprised that they don't use a lot of gaskets at the factory any more. I am not one for making a gasket with silicone but in a pinch I might. The problem with that is that anything temporary especially on a driver is permanent. I did use a tube of silicone on the gas tank of my HAWG once from up near Glacier National Park to San Francisco. It developed a crack that a bar of soap wouldn't seal, and I had no way to solder it up until I got to a friends place in the bay area. Usually aboput the time the tank was close to empty it would quit working, I would stop redo it wait until it was dry enough and fill er up and hit the road again. Long ass trip. I don't recommend it. OK I got side tracked, I hate it as much as every one else. It has its uses but so do gaskets.
Looks like that motor was pulled up from the bottom of lake to begin with. Maybe needed the RTV to keep the water out.
I'm probably the only guy left that don't throw the end gaskets away when putting on a sbc intake.Most people put a glob of Silly putty , but then again all the magazines tell them thats the way,what would 1000 Gm engineers know anyway.
Actually I have done it both ways. I have had a problem with the cork gaskets squirting out in the past but when I get a gasket set with the rubber(?) gasket they normally have those little tabs or the nipples and are not a problem.
After some of the cars I have seen - I keep telling myself to buy stock in permatex. One a SBC I do use RTV.... Front and back of the intake Corners of the pan gaskets Couple of dabs to hold the valve cover gaskets to the valve covers Thats about half a tube for the entire engine. I rarely use the front and back gaskets for the intake. The felpro kits I get usually have the crappy cork ones that just push out.
Have you ever worked on a Saturn? I'd say that any 2000 gm engineers know about half of what you do...if you added their knowledge together!!!!!
At least they now make it in black. The first stuff was blue. We called it blue goo. You would be amazed at the way the harry homeowners would slop that shit on. There is nothing any uglier than blue goo showing on an engine.
RTV is good for sticking your valve cover gaskets to your valve covers so they don't move around when you plop the covers on. And also........ um......... hmmmm.
For holding the gaskets on the waterpump, since we don't have a third arm/hand to hold the pump, slide in gasket and install bolts.
My radiator guy says to never use it on water passages because it always ends up in the radiator. He showed me several radiator cores that were clogged with 6-7 inch boogers as he called them.
When my son was dirt track racing, we never used gaskets, just sealed the engine with rtv. Bladk on the intake and gold on the eshaust and heads. We never had a problem. It is the same with anything enough is enough. some think if enough is enough then Too much is plenty.
Paper gaskets get black weather stripping cement to hold them in place. We used to use the yellow 3M "gorilla snot" but it's now available in black. Same thing for VCs I prefer the cork kind. The only place I use RTV is in the joints of some intake and pan gaskets.
At least RTV comes off I bought a beater OT pickup and the drivers side valve cover was JB welded to the head I ask the PO WTF he said when his brother inlaw had the truck he had to do a head gasket and in the process dropped the head and chunked it so bein a broke SOB he JB welded it together. Red neck engineering at it's best, God bless the Justice Brothers! Ha ha ha! Oh I left it as is and drove it into the ground.
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