The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Big Bolts Gasket or black silicone?

being in the steam generation business i like a real gasket on everything. im not a fan of snot(unless its coming out of my nose) but in certain applications i will use it on my trucks. the problems with gaskets is they tend to stick to one or both sides of what is pressing against them. when the time comes to seperate them, a couple of things can happened but ultimely the the gasket is destroyed. some people like to glue (gasket sealer) one side to a paticular surface for ease of removal but maintaining its position for reassembly. there is no guarentee that the gasket still wont fail. what we do is to add never seize to both sides of the gasket and the mating surfaces. even under extreme pressure (process) and temp the gaskets don't stick to the mating surfaces nor are they detroyed in the process should disassembly take place. i like to do this on uncommon gaskets such as axle flanges where they are hard to find replacements.