B&B Gasket Replacement

[wildwhl]

Alright, I'm tired of the gasket blowing out even with copper RTV, so...

I went to Summit today and picked up a pair of 3" three hole collector gasket - pure aluminum style.

I then proceeded to nibble out one hole so that it would line up with the 1 of the 2 holes in the 2 hole flange gasket (still had another pair in good shape) and glued the two together using copper rtv and about 5 lbs of weight to press them together for a couple of hours. The only real purpose of the composite gasket is to locate the aluminum now, since I can't seem to find a two or even four hole aluminum or copper gasket.

I then applied a very thin bead of copper rtv to each side of my "gasket assembly" and installed them about an hour ago. Torqued the crap out of everything, waited a few minutes while cleaning up and then fired her up briefly. No leaks.

I'll be taking her out tonight for some Saturday night fun (no kids week ends tomorrow) - War of the Worlds, live boxing, and King Crab dinner (in reverse order). We'll see how they hold up and I'll report back here.

FWIW - both gaskets had totally started leaking again, but the passenger side was nothing but steel mesh remaining. Seems to me like the passenger side exhaust is substantially hotter on my car....but the cats in both sides still appear to be intact

[urbanski]

mine killed the drivers worse.

but if you put the composite back in, and she blows down to the mesh, won't it leak through that? I'm just going pure (albeit ghetto) copper RTV when Mr. X comes.

But yeah, i spent 2 days on Google searching 3" 2-hole gaskets, and only found the cheap crap BB sent that died.

[wildwhl]

Originally Posted by urbanski

mine killed the drivers worse.

but if you put the composite back in, and she blows down to the mesh, won't it leak through that? I'm just going pure (albeit ghetto) copper RTV when Mr. X comes.

But yeah, i spent 2 days on Google searching 3" 2-hole gaskets, and only found the cheap crap BB sent that died.

Urby -

The composite will only blow out, as you know, if the portion isn't torqued properly. You're probably safe to setup a bead of copper rtv, let it kick off for about 30-60 minutes (but it on the x-pipe flange before installing the xpipe) and torque it down.

My hope is that the aluminum is soft enough to "fill the voids" and maintain proper pressure on the composite gasket. If this doesn't work, I'll try pure RTV as you are.

She sure sounds a lot better without the leaks...back to that semi-exotic sound

[urbanski]

yeah, i hate the "ping ping..." of leaks

[trekster]

Originally Posted by urbanski

yeah, i hate the "ping ping..." of leaks

same here.