[ShenandoahThumper]

Do I have to remove the rockers to replace the head gasket? Are the head bolts where I can access them without removing the rockers is the question I guess.

Just bought an 07 with oil leaking on the right side of the engine and some blow by at higher RPMs. I can hear a leak when the bike is running. The bike only has 800 miles on it. Do you think that if I re-torque the head that might fix it?

Thanks for any help.

John

[ShenandoahThumper]

Upon further digging I find that there are 2 head bolts under the rockers so that answers my question. How difficult is replacing the head gasket gonna be?

[The Garbone]

I personally would re-torque the head first and see if that helps,  maybe it will go away.  You might want to do a compression test if you think the leak is caused by escaping gases from the cylinder, the spigot on the head might not be mating well.  Also check your breather setup, if its clogged it might just be pressure escaping via that gasket and not through the proper tube. 

I don't think replacing the gasket is that tough, I plan on doing mine in the near future myself.

[1Blackwolf1]

  About a 3 or 4 hour job.  Order the composite gasket from the store.  You may be able to retorque it, if it's leaking on the right hand side of the engine at the back it may/may not seal.  That's where mine was leaking, had to replace the gasket.  I ordered the head gasket set so I got all new washers and gaskets.  Pretty easy repair.  Do a search on head gasket replacement, there are quite a few of us who have done the job.  Will.

[ShenandoahThumper]

I checked the air filter and it had no sign of oil residue. The gasket is definitely allowing compression out. I can hear what sounds like and exhaust leak coming from  that area. Since I have to remove everything to re-torque the head, I might as well put a new gasket on it.. I have the Snidal Manual to guide me along the Bullet path.

[1Blackwolf1]

  Might want to check your headpipe if you hear an exhaust leak, since the pipe is basically a press fit into the head on the iron lungs, wouldn't think it would run with that bad a compression leak.  Will.

[jdrouin]

I developed some weeping in the same spot around 1200 miles on my '07 Classic. My dealer retorqued the head bolts at that time during the break-in service. It still weeps a little, but less than it had been and also not all the time.

I thought about having him replace the head gasket but it doesn't seem to be losing pressure and definitely don't hear any leaks. I understand pretty much all bullets weep from this spot even after a head gasket replacement, so I decided not to do anything about it since the bike is running great and I didn't want to make it worse.

I guess that's a long way of saying I'd check the exhaust for leaks before you do anything to the gasket, and that you should definitely retorque the head first, as it's a routine part of the break-in service.

Jeff

[ace.cafe]

Don't over-torque that head in an attempt to cure an oil leak.
You can try torquing it to the spec of 24 ft-lbs, but no more than that.
The vast majority of oil leaks in the Bullet head gasket area are because of a mismatch of spigot height to head recess depth, and no torquing in the world can cure that.
Over-torquing will just lead to ripped-out threads, and will not cure the leak.

If you actually are leaking compression out of the head gasket, it must be replaced.
The composite gasket seems to be a popular choice.

[Ice]

 My Bullet has a oil seep at the junction of head and cylinder. I have the composite gasket  on hand. At that time I will employ a trick from olde days and paint the gasket with copper spray paint as an aid to sealing.

 Don't ask me how I know its best to let the paint dry before installation.

 Come to think of it I need to order the crush proof hardened head stud washers from our host first.

[ShenandoahThumper]

  Might want to check your headpipe if you hear an exhaust leak, since the pipe is basically a press fit into the head on the iron lungs, wouldn't think it would run with that bad a compression leak.  Will.

That's what I thought as first. But my son pointed out exhaust coming between the head and barrel when you revved it up. The bike seems down on power and is hard starting. It started better once it warmed up.

[1Blackwolf1]

  I guess then your fate is sealed.  But it is a fairly easy straight forward job.  You can have it changed and be out riding the same day.  As long as you don't run into any snafu's/fubars's once you get the head off.  Will.

[Chasfield]

This issue is running parallel on another thread.

Pay heed to Ace's advice regarding spigot height and head recess. Measure round with a vernier caliper that has a depth measuring widgit (I think that most of them do) to convince yourself that the spigot is not so deep that it hits the bottom of the head recess before the new gasket is clamped.

ie., spigot height minus gasket thickness should be < head recess depth

(it might not be the same all around...)

If the barrel is off and you have small hands, you can fit the head,  head gasket and barrel together and measure that spigot top / head gap by putting a feeler gauge blade up the bore. I satisfied myself that I had about 8 thou of gasket squash clearance - though my calculated gap from the spigot height, head gasket thickness and recess depth came to less. I could never work out why this was but I went with that 8 thou anyway. Don't know what it should be, but all seems well so far.

You can also get a good idea about gasket  fit by placing the head on the barrel with the gasket omitted. Then measure the barrel face to head face gap, as seen from the outside. In my case I looking for this to be about 20 thou.

If you are competent you can shave the spigot height as necessary with the barrel off the bike, though it is less risky just to make sure your new gasket is of appropriate uncompressed thickness.

BTW, I was using a copper sandwich type of gasket that started out at being about 28 thou thick.

[Sam]

I'm going through the same process right now; His Lordship was squirting oil so off with his head!  A bit of flat filing, checked with a pane of glass, and voila! the spigot is truly flat. When I reassemble I'll leave out the also-leaking base gasket in favor of a bead of RTV, which will give me a very slight bump in compression (I'll have to scrape the carbon deposits off the upper reaches of the cylinder, though, or risk breaking a ring). Waiting on the composition gasket, and just realized that I forgot to order the hardened washers, so I'll be on the phone to CMW first thing Monday about that. A good bonding experience, anyway.

[Sam]

which, now that I think about it, brings up a question. Ace, how much squish thickness do you think is needed? my spigot is 0.230" (pretty tall); the head recess is 0.205 give or take; this means the gasket has to be at least 0.025 + some squish. a 1mm gasket, 0.040, would squish 0.015", or about 1/3 of it's un-squished thickness, which seems safe, but I don't know how thick the composition gasket is.

Ace, or anybody else, your thoughts?

[jest2dogs]

I stumbled across a reference on the web a few years ago regarding peelable, laminated, head gasket material used on British bikes. You would do a dry test assembly by setting the head on the cylinder sans gasket, and measuring the gap between surfaces. Then peel a gasket that was .002" thicker than the gap for "squish".

Personally, with the Bullet and it's low compression, as long as the gasket used was at least .002" thicker than the gap, you'd probably be just fine. Unless you have access to a machine shop that can accurately measure the spigot height to the groove in the head I wouldn't get to fussy as long as there is enough clearance to get her down level.

FWIW, when I did my last head gasket I used a stock gasket and some aircraft sealant called TiteSeal, medium weight (available from Aircraft Spruce & Specialties Co.,  www.aircraftspruce.com ). A thin coat on both sides of the gasket. I torqued the head to 165 inch lbs (Yup, that's much less than the book values!) in three lifts of 55 in lbs each with a little time in between each lift. Hasn't leaked a drop of oil from the head gasket which had given me fits for a long time. That was about 1,500 miles ago.

The only leak I now have is from the primary and Vince tells me it's because of the new, factory suggested 880-1,000 cc of oil in the primary compared to the 440cc of the manual. (Have a Leak/Save a Starter.)

I posted pics in the thread I wrote about the head . I don't know if I got around to the gasket installation or not. Look in Tech Tips: http://www.enfieldmotorcycles.com/forum/index.php/topic,2277.0.html

-Jesse

[Chasfield]

If the barrel spigot is perfectly flat topped, to match a perfectly flat head recess surface then the head gasket only really has to seal the oil into the push rod tunnel - the spigot /  head fit will be taking the combustion chamber pressure and light clamping of the gasket will suffice.

However, I know my head / spigot fit is not going to be that precise so I reasoned it would be better to go for a bit more gasket interference/squash so that I can be sure that the main flat faces of barrel and head are clamping it hard. I have no way of knowing how close the top surface of the spigot is to the head recess surface, now that it is all buttoned down. One of those endoscopes that doctors use would be good for a journey down the spark plug hole for a look see.

 

As I mentioned on another thread, the 1mm solid copper gasket, with a little compound, would almost guarantee good clamping unless your spigot height was way above average - and it ain't going to blow out any time soon.

[1Blackwolf1]

  I filed mine down a bit to get the high spots out.  And i agree good gasket sealer does a good trick on them.  I use the Indianhead that we used to use on the farm..that stuff will stick a rubber hinge to a wood door.  Never had a gasket blow after using that to coat them.  Will.

[Sam]

Spigot's nice and flat now, but in the process of getting flat it got a lot shorter; there was quite a bit of non-flatness. I've now got about 0.010 gasket squish (difference between spigot height and recess depth), but I'll be flattening the head a bit next, so that'll increase a bit. I'll mic the new gasket, if I don't like it I can always anneal the old 1mm copper gasket that I took off and recycle it. Interestingly, I couldn't find the hardened washers in the CMW store, so I gave the nice folks a call.

Damn, these are simple machines.

[1Blackwolf1]

  Sort of like working on an old Wiscosin air cooled.  If it doesn't need it, it doesn't have it.  Will.