Hitchcocks Forum

In failing to tighten up the head bolts sufficiently my newly assembled engine developed a compression leak from the back of the newly fitted composite gasket.
I am wondering if I can reuse the original fitted old copper gasket and fit with wellseal. The gasket is almost new and only done 200 miles or so.
If this fails to work and a new gasket is needed I am wondering whether people recommend copper or composite?
I can't actually see any copper gaskets on hitchcocks site for the redditch bullet.
The bike is a redditch 350 Iron barrel

You can use the old copper one but you would have to anneal it.

Have you checked that the joint faces are perfectly flat?

A.

It would require a little hammer work on a flat surface. I have some metal work hammers and a good surface so may give it a go. Would I be best to do this before or after annealing?

Cov Lad wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 24, 2020 11:01 am

It would require a little hammer work on a flat surface. I have some metal work hammers and a good surface so may give it a go. Would I be best to do this before or after annealing?

If the old gasket is solid copper you can anneal it heat to cherry red then quench in cold water
If it is the laminated type you can't anneal it

Hammer work on flat surface??

Adrian wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 24, 2020 9:18 am

Have you checked that the joint faces are perfectly flat?

A.

Sorry I thought you meant the gasket. I have checked with steel rule. The faces looked good to my untrained eye. The only issue is that the barrel had a repair weld.
A local Enfield guru is goung to come over and check it for me at some point. In the meantime I was going totry the old gasket. I am having trouble finding places open to buy wellseal. Everything seems to be mail order because of covid.

If you need a hammer then the gasket is scrap imo.
If you must hammer it, anneal, hammer and anneal again.

If a copper gasket needs hammering flat, chances are it will stretch during the process. I’d not risk that because it quite possibly won’t work and you’ll be back where you started.

Cov Lad wrote:

Adrian wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 24, 2020 9:18 am

Have you checked that the joint faces are perfectly flat?

A.

Sorry I thought you meant the gasket. I have checked with steel rule. The faces looked good to my untrained eye. The only issue is that the barrel had a repair weld.
A local Enfield guru is goung to come over and check it for me at some point. In the meantime I was going totry the old gasket. I am having trouble finding places open to buy wellseal. Everything seems to be mail order because of covid.

Just to clarify, I was referring to the cylinder head and the top of the cylinder barrel, the copper gasket would just need annealing as above unless it has been damaged.

If the head is slightly warped you can probably true it up on a piece of plate glass and a sheet of wet and dry (not too coarse!) with plenty of soapy water. I once had a new cylinder head with a wavy joint finish courtesy of a wonky milling machine somewhere in Chennai. Took no more than about 10 minutes to sort it out. The joint face on the cast iron barrel might also need true-ing up, which would have to be done in a lathe.

The other possibility is that the cylinder barrel top spigot isn't quite letting the cylinder head sit properly on the gasket, so that when you tighten the head it's not sufficiently clamped down. Easy tightening those head nuts, or it's hello to Mr Helicoil. You visiting guru will want to look at all this.

A.

You can true up a cast iron barrel yourself on wet n dry. Just takes longer