How to remove baked-on old gasket maker and RTV
Old gasket sealant and RTV become super cooked and baked onto metal engine blocks, making scrapers, wire brushes, and chemical sprays agonizingly slow and tedious to use. This makes cleaning the mating surfaces take hours of tedious picking, stalling the entire rebuild process.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Using a razor blade or scraper with brake cleaner
- 2Using a dremel with a fine wire brush
- 3Using scotch brite pads
- 4Using a utility knife to peel up the material
- 5Using a wire wheel on a drill
- 6Applying penetrating fluid like blaster and a mix of ATF and acetone
- 7Picking at the gasket around the block
- 8Considering leaving it as is and adding RTV silicone over the rusted ring
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“My main issue is just how to clean it, ts super cooked”source ↗
“how can i better remove the old gasket maker crap. Ive been using a blade/scraper and a wire brush and brake cleaner. But its super tedious.”source ↗
“Any tips on how to remove this metal and rubber gasket? It's about 1.5mm thick metal. I've been applying on blaster and a mix of ATF and acetone and picking at it around the aluminum block and the metal part of the gasket and making very slow progress.”source ↗
Where this came up
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