Ford Blitz Restoration/Rebuild

[Phil Waterman]

Hi Tony

Gasket material as sheet stock has gotten hard to find in this day of silicon-based sealants, particularly finding sheets that are large enough to make one-piece gaskets for things like differential housings. Over the years I picked up a stock of sheet stuff at flee markets but just as with NOS gasket sets and the cork gasket material does tend to dry out, or has been rolled so it is hard to get flat.

What I have been using is high grade printing stock paper from a local print shop. Also use tag stock, as used in manila folders this is what I use to print small gaskets from computer. For the larger stuff 24x36 using high fiber or rag content print paper like they print wedding invitations on.

Walked into a printing shop with a micrometer and asked to see their sample book, then proceeded to check the thickness of the various weights of paper. Guy asked me what I was doing and I explained, in the end the guy sold me a box of left over miscellaneous thickness and types paper with 200+ sheets real cheep around ten bucks.

When making large gasket I cut out the gaskets and then spray them with Permatex Spray Gasket (item 80065) which is meant to seal cut gaskets, and to make them sticky so that they stay in place while being assembled. Lay the gasket to be sprayed on wax paper, spray one side and let it get tacky then respray, to spray the other side you need fresh wax paper as the Permatex is like contact cement it will stick to any surface that has already been sprayed. But it won't really stick to fresh wax paper unless you press on it. Then you spray the back side as with the other side and let it get tacky and it is ready to install.

Why did I want various thicknesses, for things like transfer cases where the thickness of the gaskets gets into the preset of the bearings. As I disassemble I save the old gasket (or part of it) to measure thickness when I'm ready to reassemble I select the paper with the closest thickness and go through the shimming process to get the proper preload.

Hope this helps

Cheers Phil