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Location:
Lake Macquarie
Registered:
July 2002
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Copper head gaskets
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Tue, 04 May 2004 02:16
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Has anyone had problems with copper head gaskets leaking.
How do i stop it?
What do i use to glue it down. i tried hylamar (i think)
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Location:
Newcastle
Registered:
May 2002
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Tue, 04 May 2004 03:20
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I've got a copper head gasket on my 3T-GTE. I've had the block O ringed and a reciver grove in the head and the last time we put it back together (engine builder and I) about 3 years ago we use a salastic type material call 3 bond. The engine builder & I used it for every thing, head gasket, water pump, timing chain cover, etc...
With the copper gasket I had to tourqe the head bolts to 75 pound. Having said all that though, after the Toyota National drag day I found some oil in the water which I don't know where it came from yet.
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Location:
brisbane
Registered:
February 2004
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Tue, 04 May 2004 04:09
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I used to run a copper gasket on my 18rg race motor i got it from a crowd down in melbourne called ridgecrest engineering ph 0359814334 now for memory we didnt need to use any sealer on it but if re using it they do need to be heat treated to soften them back up. My advice is to give them a call as they manufacture them and they should be able to tell you what is required. Cheers NEV.
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Location:
Adelaide
Registered:
September 2003
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Tue, 04 May 2004 04:38
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ahh the pain
i have a copper head gasket in my 18rgeu
block was o-ringed
this is what i did:
got the head re-annealed (or however you say it) which is basically heating it to cherry red and allowing it to cool down again, should make it nice and soft.
grab a hold of copper gasket cement spray (i think the brand name was vht or something similar from autopro)
now clean the gasket as best you can and make sure it is nice and flat (take care not to bend it even though it is tempting to see how soft it is after the heating process)
make sure block face is flat and clean
make sure head face is flat and clean (i got mine shaved to make sure)
have everything together
spray gasket evenly and reasonably liberally (but not to dripping status)
it gets tacky reasonably quickly so you have about a 3 minute window to wait for it to go tacky and then another 3 minute window to chuck it on the block (it should fit perfectly) and then chucking the head on and tightening it down.
i tightened to the upper limits of the torque settings which i think was 60-63 odd ft per pound.
ran it to operating temparature, let it cool down ensure tension was still correct. ran for about 2 weeks and confirm tensions a second time.
so far i havent lost my coolant or oil (fingers crossed) which was where it was going before (into the cylinders that is).
if anyone could verify or hone this technique then please cos i would love to know also
hope it helps you though
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Location:
Parramatta
Registered:
July 2002
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Tue, 04 May 2004 06:51
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i have a cooper head gasget on a 3sgte i have had the head and block o ringed used gasket goop and no problems has been like that for over a year now the car gets alot of punshment too. I have no complaints
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Location:
South Australia
Registered:
July 2002
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Tue, 04 May 2004 07:18
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Used them in my brothers rally car no problems...used Threebond as well (make sure to use a VERY thin coating)...o-ringing is a must and the block and head must be machined perfectly flat (machined!). If any of these requirements aren't met, chances are the seal won't last. Generally copper head gaskets aren't too problematic, if they are chances are something was done incorrectly.
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Location:
Lake Macquarie
Registered:
July 2002
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Thu, 06 May 2004 03:12
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Thanks guys for all the feed back.
From all that, i believe i followed pretty much all that. i am a bit suspect of the annealing tho. i will pull the head off on the weekend and see what i find.
I don't have a receiver groove in the head is this a problem?
When i was putting the engine together i went looking around Newcastle for 3bond but could not find it anywhere. i have since been told to use 'copper coat'. Any one used this? I'm at a lose at what to use. every one i talk to say 'product x' is the shit, then the next person says it sucks.
ANY tips on annealing, i plan on firing up the oven is this enough and how long for.
Barned01 : Did you mean you anneal the head gasket or the whole head. i haven't heard of doing the head.
Sorry for the length, so many thoughts going on in my head.
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Location:
South Australia
Registered:
July 2002
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Thu, 06 May 2004 03:42
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The gasket.
I dunno if the oven is enough, but you can give it a shot I suppose 
PS...Can't stress enough the importance of getting the tension right...
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Location:
South Australia
Registered:
July 2002
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Thu, 06 May 2004 03:48
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btw - I can't confirm this, but I'm not sure if annealing is necessary or a good idea? It may soften the material while it is warm, but if the gasket isn't perfectly cool when it is put in a) the tension will be wrong due to thermal expansion and b) the sealing material will have to thin/spread out when the gasket cools.
Even if the material is 'softer' when it's put incold, it's still possible the o-rings may etch themselves a groove in the gasket, which would kind of screw the point of the o-rings up. O-rings are there to add extra pressure to 'clamp' the gasket in place as copper is a malleable material, if there is a groove in the gasket for the o-rings to sit in, then it is possible that there won't be as great a clamping force around the combustion chambers and hence the gasket will blow.
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Location:
Lake Macquarie
Registered:
July 2002
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Wed, 19 May 2004 02:26
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Ok guys
I got the head off to find out what went wrong.
Dont you hate it when it is something that should have got picked up in the assembly process.
What i discovered was that the holes where the head bolts go through were not quite big enough, so that when i did them up, the gasket binded on the bolts and did not allow every thing to clamp properly.
I have it almost back together now and we will see how she fires up on the weekend hopfully
** Fingers Crossed **
ps. with annealing i got an old large bbq plate, shoved it on the 4 burner flat out and also hit it with a lpg blowtorch, not ideal but the best i could come up with.
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Banned by his request
Location:
moved to tamworth
Registered:
July 2002
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Wed, 19 May 2004 06:14
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when you anneal it make sure you clean it properly.
use only 3BOND and its 1211 from memory. dont use anything else as 3bond is the best. match the gasket to the bores and check that the steam holes are drilled. ive yet to have a copper gasket i havnt had to clean up and ive used all avalible in australia. oring the block and put a reciever in the head or oring. its better to get them properly annealed.
mick
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Location:
Kita-Ku, Sapporo, Japan
Registered:
January 2003
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Wed, 19 May 2004 06:33
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| FWDboy wrote on Thu, 06 May 2004 13:48 |
btw - I can't confirm this, but I'm not sure if annealing is necessary or a good idea? It may soften the material while it is warm, but if the gasket isn't perfectly cool when it is put in a) the tension will be wrong due to thermal expansion and b) the sealing material will have to thin/spread out when the gasket cools.
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annealing is the process where you heat a material up to a high enough temperature that recrystallisation occurs.
What it basically means for us here, is that when you tighten a copper head gasket, and squish it, you introduce work hardening. annealing reduces the work harening by recrystallisation and grain growth (initially by allowing the dislocations to move out of the material) resulting in a material with lower strength, but higher ductility (returning it's malleability  )
you NEED a soft copper gasket so that it conforms to the head and block irregularities when you torque it down...
Cya, Stewart
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Location:
Lake Macquarie
Registered:
July 2002
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Wed, 19 May 2004 06:42
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When i found that the bolt holes were too small, i did systematically go around and check all the other holes and opened them up as needed.
I am kicking myself for not doing this so thoroughly in the first place, but when you pay an engine builder to make a gasket for you as well as do the machine work i would think it should be done so it works.
Maybe i should have listened to my physics teacher when she said never assume anything, until you prove it.
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Location:
Lismore, NSW
Registered:
February 2003
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Wed, 19 May 2004 07:31
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I had problems with my CHG in my 7MGTE, I was getting compression into my water jackets causing water to spew out of the radiatior. I had my block faced, Oringed, head was also faced. I used hylomer spray on both sides of the gasket and tightened up to 75lbs. I think it was leaking around the CHG and the head. Im using A stock HG with the orings still in place.
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Location:
On your mum!
Registered:
May 2002
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Wed, 19 May 2004 07:47
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To anneal copper you generally need to cool it with water after heating.
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Banned by his request
Location:
moved to tamworth
Registered:
July 2002
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Wed, 19 May 2004 10:32
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thats right it goes straight into water. we get them annealed by a guy that heat treats aircraft parts and its an oven with a tank below it and it auto feeds it from the oven to the tank. has to be done at the right temp for the right time then asap into the water. STEWART means for us not so informed people qives the gasket back its squish or compression!lol you guys are lucky there is a toymods metalurgy ledgend in the club!thanks stewart, love the work.
and as i said before use 3bond 1211 and only this and you wont have a prob.
mick
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Location:
Lake Macquarie
Registered:
July 2002
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Wed, 19 May 2004 12:38
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Why do you put the gasket into water after heating, this will make the grains on the outer larger and therefore harder (case harden), i was under the impression to cool it slowly to get and even grain structure which will make it soft and maluable.
Will i have a problem. i hope not cause it is all back together ready to fire up.
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Location:
On your mum!
Registered:
May 2002
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Wed, 19 May 2004 12:56
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Annealing the copper eliminates the dislocations so that the copper is once again composed of nice perfect crystals. This allows the copper wire to be reused since it is now soft and easily bent. Generally annealing is done at greater than 1/2 of the melting point on the absolute temperature scale. Copper melts at 1083C = 1356K so the annealing is done at greater than 678K = 405C = 761F. However, it will take a fairly long time at the lower end of the range so it is more common to anneal at about 700 to 800C. The copper can be worked and annealled many, many times for the purposes of bonsai since we really don't need extremely tightly controlled properties. The properties will degrade with repeated cycles for various reasons - oxidation being the most obvious.
The copper will maintain it's soft crystal structure after annealing at any realistic cooling rate (from very slow like letting fire die down to fast like throwing it in a bucket of water). Generally, I would suggest water cooling to prevent excessive oxidation of the surface. Steel (iron + carbon) on the other hand will change it's properties dramatically upon rapid cooling . However, it is possible to cool copper fast enough to make it into a brittle material. This normally involves cooling rates of greater than 10 million degrees C per second which can only be obtained by spraying a very thin film on to a very cold surface (this equipment is very expensive).
Got this of Google. I checked other sites and the information was generally the same - as this is analmods, I went for the technical sounding, and long winded artical.
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Location:
Lost in the K hole
Registered:
May 2002
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Wed, 19 May 2004 12:59
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| YelloRolla wrote on Wed, 19 May 2004 22:56 |
as this is analmods, I went for the technical sounding, and long winded artical.
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more, more!!! i enjoyed reading that!!
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Location:
Lake Macquarie
Registered:
July 2002
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Wed, 19 May 2004 13:26
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Nice,
Thats what i was about to say. ed_ma61
its good to get some real tech backup to what people say, and not what 'My mate said'
Keep up the good info dude
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Location:
Kita-Ku, Sapporo, Japan
Registered:
January 2003
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Wed, 19 May 2004 14:21
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| Syc02T wrote on Wed, 19 May 2004 22:38 |
Why do you put the gasket into water after heating, this will make the grains on the outer larger and therefore harder (case harden), i was under the impression to cool it slowly to get and even grain structure which will make it soft and maluable.
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quenching (in steels) causes smaller (but more deformed) crystals to form at the surface... vaguely....
strength is actually inversely proportional to grain size (in fully annealed state)
btw, i cannot stress enough the importance if using low hydrogen atmospheres for annealing of copper.
unless your head gasket is made from very low oxygen materials (like you see for snazzy speaker cables, Oxygen Free Copper=OFC) the hydrogen can cause embrittlement. basically, don't use oxy or propane torches if possible. ideally use an electric furnace. a heat treating company should be able to do this for very little cost.
i don't have any info at hand as to how long embrittlement takes, but it should be avoided if possible.
as for water dunking.... it doesn't appear to harden or soften the copper, but if there are oxide scales formed during heating (even tho it is a short time... copper anneals in minutes at a high enough temp) the quenching will more than likely cause spallation of the scale (ie the shit on the surface falls off ) which makes it easier to clean after.
http://info.lu.farmingdale.edu/depts/met/met205/an nealingstages.html
http://www.key-to-metals.com/Article25.htm
http://www.key-to-metals.com/Article27.htm
http://www.steamengine.com.au/ic/faq/gaskets.html
http://www.headgasket.com/preinstall.html
http://members.shaw.ca/turbofiero/engine_prep.htm
and not really related, but about resistivity
http://www.copper.org/innovations/1997/Dec1997/wir emetallurgy.html
totally OT, but mentions copper
http://www.homedistiller.org/materials.htm
some reading for those inclined
Cya, Stewart
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Location:
Newcastle
Registered:
May 2002
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Fri, 21 May 2004 02:20
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Syc02T, Go to Bearing Traders 49692044, 214 Maitland Road Islington. That's where I got the 3bond I used.
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Location:
cambo
Registered:
May 2002
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Sat, 22 May 2004 09:57
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for whoever it was that asked, there is a process in which the HEAD is heated, this is when it is warped a decent amount and it needs to be heated and bent back to shape cause it would need to be machined to much to get it flat again. it generally is still machined afterwards but not as much metal is removed.
good to see a quality in-depth tech discussion. keep up the good work fella's
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Location:
Lake Macquarie
Registered:
July 2002
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Thu, 27 May 2004 03:58
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Well she is all back together now, just a few more checks then hopefully she will fire on the weekend. Fingers crossed.
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Location:
newcastle nsw
Registered:
May 2002
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Thu, 27 May 2004 23:34
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cmon chris i think your dreaming, youve been saying that every weekend since christmas 
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Location:
Lake Macquarie
Registered:
July 2002
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Fri, 28 May 2004 04:27
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Christmas 2001
I know, but some one has to back me, and im the only one that will do that at the moment.
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Location:
Lake Macquarie
Registered:
July 2002
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Re: Copper head gaskets
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Sun, 06 June 2004 09:49
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Well steve it has finially happened.
She fires every time now, fixed all those PITA teething problems and ive cracked up 40k now.
Now to start the engineering crap. Exhaust test i think is going to be hard to past, which i will try for this week.
Then i will get it tuned properly and we will both go out and torment some locals.
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