Need Gaskets in a Hurry, Cut Your Own

[Tom Wesenberg]

Gaskets are usually cheap enough to buy already made, but if you need one in a hurry, they are usually easy to make from gasket material. If you need one for the top of the tranny, just cut a piece slightly larger than the hole, then lay it on the cast iron housing, hold it firmly in place and tap along the edge with a ball peen hammer. Do this for the inside edge also, and you can also tap the holes with the hammer to cut them nice and round.

If you need a gasket for something smaller and more delicate, like an aluminum carb housing, then coat the edge of the housing with a light coat of oil or grease. Lay the part on the paper gasket material, and the pattern should be transferred perfectly. Use a scissors, Exacto knife, and leather hole punch to cut out the gasket and holes.

[Big hammer]

Also cereal box will work for a gasket, in a pinch :-)

[Mitch]

And use a BIG HAMMER

[BILL WILLIAMSON]

AND use a tiny Ball Pein Hammer, jist go---TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP----
The Cheerios box will NEVER go EMPTY! Duz anyone REALLY eat them things? They're made frum re-cycled, brown, cardboard boxes! We called it Paste Board & brown paper bags were "pokes"---And, Burlap Bags were "toe sacks"! Why??? do Folks think we talked FUNNIE???
Pokes work good to make a THIN water neck gasket & tie a toe sack on your '35 spoke wheels, fur that Old Dog that chases yo' car. If he ever gits hold of it, he'll stay on his porch, when he hears you comin' next time!!! (Chiefs' trick!)
Dad Paranoid

[DaWizard]

I eat them when I need ruffage

[2manycars]

Bill, I think the original term was "tote sacks" because people could tote things in the sack.

[tbirdtbird]

Sometimes paper bags make great starting material.

Also, in some cases you can use a rattle can of cheap primer and spray around the part and get the outline and the bolt holes, then clean the primer off the part. There are clearly situations where this is not gonna work, tho

[H. L. Chauvin]

FWIW:

For years we used leather punches of different diameters for making holes in Model A homemade gaskets and other vehicle gaskets.

At Amazon, this leather punch set of (6), (shown below), is under $8.00 w/ free delivery "Prime", which will "quickly" cut "perfect" holes for homemade Model A gaskets.

We used non-glossy grey shoe box cardboard and oiled both sides of this stiff cardboard with 30 wt. oil, (Detergent or Non-detergent, LOL), for all Model A homemade gaskets except for larger oil pan gaskets, and metal head gasket and metal manifold gaskets.

Manila folders also make great thin gaskets.

• 

[Mitch]

H.L. Whats better whitewall shoe box cardboard or black wall?

[H. L. Chauvin]

Third line down, to avoid Model A gasket fights and arguments, we carefully chose "grey" cardboard shoe boxes produced only from U. S. paper mills who mixed products from both their "Whitewall Forest" and their "Blackwall Forest"; hence, nobody ever complained!

[Rowdy]

One thing nice about buying horn gaskets fron A&L is they leave the gasket material from the middle attached. Just enough material to make the gaskets for the powerhouse generator mounts. While these gaskets don't seal anything Ford used them anyway. Possibly for noise reduction. Rod

[2manycars]

Gaskets are usually cheap enough to buy already made, but if you need one in a hurry, they are usually easy to make from gasket material. If you need one for the top of the tranny, just cut a piece slightly larger than the hole, then lay it on the cast iron housing, hold it firmly in place and tap along the edge with a ball peen hammer. Do this for the inside edge also, and you can also tap the holes with the hammer to cut them nice and round.

If you need a gasket for something smaller and more delicate, like an aluminum carb housing, then coat the edge of the housing with a light coat of oil or grease. Lay the part on the paper gasket material, and the pattern should be transferred perfectly. Use a scissors, Exacto knife, and leather hole punch to cut out the gasket and holes.

This is exactly what my shop teacher in VOAG taught us in 1962.

[CM2]

Get hip fellas,this what the cool kids use nowadays

[Jeff/Illinois]

They used to tell me when I worked at JD, that German built Deutz tractors were so finely machined that they didn't have to use gaskets on most mating surfaces!!

German ingenuity!! The Swedes must have had good machinists too because Henry went out of his way to hire them at the Rouge.

[H. L. Chauvin]

I completely rebuilt my used 1960 VW engine in 1967. The engine block was manufactured with (2) opposing halves with a vertical joint in the center. When assembled, there was no gasket between these (2) halves to seal the crankcase.

VW piston pins were recommended to be placed in the freezer by the VW local dealer prior to inserting in slightly warmed pistons.

I later experienced working with German vehicle maintenance technicians in Germany in the 1980's ....... I really don't think we could ever make better tasting varieties of beer than these German gentlemen back then either. LOL

[BNCHIEF]

Look at the innovation Germanys people did in ww2, fortunately he did not get to build a lot of that stuff in time.

[2manycars]

Look at the innovation Germanys people did in ww2, fortunately he did not get to build a lot of that stuff in time.

And remember that most of our rocket scientists that got us up in space were Germans who were moved here after WW2.

[BNCHIEF]

Exactly right.

[Tom Wesenberg]

They used to tell me when I worked at JD, that German built Deutz tractors were so finely machined that they didn't have to use gaskets on most mating surfaces!!

German ingenuity!! The Swedes must have had good machinists too because Henry went out of his way to hire them at the Rouge.

When I was in the 8th grade I remember reading a Hot Rod magazine about Art Arfons and his land speed record holder the Green Hornet. I don't recall if the Green Hornet or one of his other speed machines had the 4 Pontiac engines, but the article said the heads used no gaskets. That sounded so unbelievable that I still remember it. Several small one cylinder engines use no head gasket, but for a large V8, that's quite an accomplishment.