front case gasket

[Calan]

Why is the OEM front case gasket so mismatched as far as how it aligns with the oil galleys in the block and cover?

When I pulled mine, there were all kinds of burnt flaking pieces of the gasket everywhere from where the gasket had oil flowing on both sides of it in these channels. This can't be good for the oil system.

Is this for a functional reason, or just a gasket manufacturing by-product? (i.e. so the same gasket will work on engines with slightly different machining). Do you guys ever trim the gasket to match the case more closely to avoid these broken pieces of brittle gasket from getting into the oil?

 

[turborebel]

It's hard to cut the gasket cleanly if a hole punch is not used. Be carfull and make sure about what your are doing. If you're not sure of where to trim, don't mess with it.

 

[pneumo]

There's one place where oil flows past both sides of the gasket. It's made that way so the gasket is thick enough to hold up. If you trim it, it'll be too thin to stay in place when it's installed, and it might shift over and not seal.

Since yours was broken, I'd say it wasn't installed correctly. Check VFAQ.com in the engine section. It has a nice writeup for installing a new front case gasket.

 

[Maglin]

If you cutout that portion of material between the 2 oil gallies it will be very likely that the small amount of gasket that is left to seal will get pushed from the oil pressure. With just the holes their is no worry. I too thought about doing the same thing. But after some functional thinking I realized why it is the way it is.