Vesrah Gasket Set Failure

[Planecrazy]

Now don't get me wrong, I love CRCII, was in there today as a matter of fact. But Rob IS a businessman, trying to sell you things out of his store.

Caveat emptor with any aftermarket equipment or parts....

I know, Brett, but he could just have easily claimed that Vesrah was "just as good" or "better" than stock ... that's not what he said. He claimed that Vesrah actually makes the stock stuff ... and by the way, I have had good success to date with my Vesrah stuff so I had no reason to think any differently.

Regards,

[bwringer]

Again, I have used several Vesrah kits in the past with no problems.

However, I think there has been a change or there were several defective items in the last Vesrah kit I used. Not just stuff that might have been errors in assembly or preparation -- serious material failures.

It's only a sample of one, but that's enough for me. I value my time spent repeating work far more than the extra $90 for a Suzuki kit.

Also, I have since obtained a Suzuki gasket kit. Let me tell you, it is far, far more complete than the Vesrah kit, and I think ultimately a much better value.

The Suzuki kit contains EVERYTHING except the crank and transmission seals. I'm also not entirely sure if it contains the cam chain tensioner seals and o-rings, or if it contains the seals for the tach drive. I haven't taken the kit out of its various bags yet to find out.

Of course, the head gasket is obviously much higher quality, with sealing rings built in to the corners.

They even include the many sealing washers and drain plug gaskets required, along with intake boot o-rings, o-rings for the bevel gears, an o-ring for the gear indicator, o-rings for the oil pump, the o-ring that goes between the case halves, a cam chain tensioner gasket, etc. It's actually a complete kit, not the half-assed Vesrah collection.

[psyguy]

They even include the many sealing washers and drain plug gaskets required, along with intake boot o-rings, o-rings for the bevel gears, an o-ring for the gear indicator, o-rings for the oil pump, the o-ring that goes between the case halves, a cam chain tensioner gasket, etc. It's actually a complete kit, not the half-assed Vesrah collection.

i didn't know that... but yeah, that's what's supposed to be meant by "COMPLETE", i guess...
... so, next time definitely OEM for a peace of mind and an actual COMPLETE set

thanks brian!

[49er]

Again, I have used several Vesrah kits in the past with no problems.

However, I think there has been a change or there were several defective items in the last Vesrah kit I used. Not just stuff that might have been errors in assembly or preparation -- serious material failures.

It's only a sample of one, but that's enough for me. I value my time spent repeating work far more than the extra $90 for a Suzuki kit.

Also, I have since obtained a Suzuki gasket kit. Let me tell you, it is far, far more complete than the Vesrah kit, and I think ultimately a much better value.

The Suzuki kit contains EVERYTHING except the crank and transmission seals. I'm also not entirely sure if it contains the cam chain tensioner seals and o-rings, or if it contains the seals for the tach drive. I haven't taken the kit out of its various bags yet to find out.

Of course, the head gasket is obviously much higher quality, with sealing rings built in to the corners.

They even include the many sealing washers and drain plug gaskets required, along with intake boot o-rings, o-rings for the bevel gears, an o-ring for the gear indicator, o-rings for the oil pump, the o-ring that goes between the case halves, a cam chain tensioner gasket, etc. It's actually a complete kit, not the half-assed Vesrah collection.

Since the OEM gasket sets are so complete, I've decided to do a full strip down. It seems pointless just doing the top end when all the other seals and gaskets are 30 years old. Incidently, I replaced the clutch cover gasket out of the same Vesrah set and it's also seeping oil.

While the engines out, I might be tempted to do a complete repaint! Nah, it can't be much fun worrying about getting your first stone chip.

Psyguy, that would see an end to the spirited rides!

Vesrah have obviously changed material compositions from the earlier versions, probably to keep the price down. All it's done, is ruin their reputation!!

[Billy Ricks]

I wonder if the decline in quality has anything to do with asbestos being taken out of everything these days? I'm not sure if they ever contained asbestos but I wouldn't doubt it.

[49er]

I wonder if the decline in quality has anything to do with asbestos being taken out of everything these days? I'm not sure if they ever contained asbestos but I wouldn't doubt it.

You could be right. I believe that automotive gaskets where asbestos based, and that boiler gasket material was a composition of asbestos and steel. Both have changed substanially in recent years.

Incidentally, my thoughts on the use of Multi layered steel head gaskets as made by cometic, have changed. They claim that heads don't need to be re-torqued when their MLS's are used. This gasket design reduces the likelyhood of bore distortion due to over tightening.
Base gaskets are also available in stainless steel coated with viton rubber (0.001" coating).

The other advantage that Ray pointed out some time back, is you don't have to clean up/scrape the head and block surfaces, each time you pull the engine apart,when using MLS gaskets.

I'm a believer!!

[bwringer]

I wonder if the decline in quality has anything to do with asbestos being taken out of everything these days? I'm not sure if they ever contained asbestos but I wouldn't doubt it.

The most serious failures in my kit were the o-rings (cam chain tunnel and rear oil passages). If the o-rings in the rear oil passages had held up, the oil probably wouldn't have made it to the defective POS base gasket.

[trippivot]

I read the first post in this thread. I have great respect for people that do their own engine work-to a point..

the diagnosis of bad materials in the rubber o rings and a cracked paper gasket. may be very wrong.

I have some ideas
#1. overheating rubber totally cooked to stiff solid (350++ F. degrees)
#2. under torque - due to not re-torquing after multiple heat cycles - the cylinders moved between the head and case block breaking the brittle overheated paper.
#3 over torque can do similar effects to the base gasket too.

I have used veshrah for many many years. I have torn down my own engines years after the build- kawasaki dealership work order history - air and liquid cooled engines- to have all o rings in plyable condition and lots of work scraping the base gasket that sealed itself to the aluminum.

Now I am sure you will defend your assembling skill and procedure and I am not going to cross that bridge to suggest any such thing.

I have yet to have any complaints to the quality of the vesrah product.
never got a bad set in over 18 years.

heat and pressure will turn coal into diamonds. heat and pressure damaged your gaskets and o rings. (or lack of proper pressure)

better luck next time and get rid of the haynes/clymer toilet paper books- they cause more trouble than they solve for non trained technitions.

[49er]

I read the first post in this thread. I have great respect for people that do their own engine work-to a point..

the diagnosis of bad materials in the rubber o rings and a cracked paper gasket. may be very wrong.

I have some ideas
#1. overheating rubber totally cooked to stiff solid (350++ F. degrees)
#2. under torque - due to not re-torquing after multiple heat cycles - the cylinders moved between the head and case block breaking the brittle overheated paper.
#3 over torque can do similar effects to the base gasket too.

I have used veshrah for many many years. I have torn down my own engines years after the build- kawasaki dealership work order history - air and liquid cooled engines- to have all o rings in plyable condition and lots of work scraping the base gasket that sealed itself to the aluminum.

Now I am sure you will defend your assembling skill and procedure and I am not going to cross that bridge to suggest any such thing.

I have yet to have any complaints to the quality of the vesrah product.
never got a bad set in over 18 years.

heat and pressure will turn coal into diamonds. heat and pressure damaged your gaskets and o rings. (or lack of proper pressure)

better luck next time and get rid of the haynes/clymer toilet paper books- they cause more trouble than they solve for non trained technitions.

Thanks for your feedback. You raise some very good points, especially when considering the operating conditions of air cooled engines.

In my case, I considered the visual quality of the Vesrah set to be very good. I did need to elongate one of the alignment dowel holes to make the head gasket fit correctly though.

I torqued my head to 30 ft lbs, then re-torqued it after the first 800 kms.
The head gasket seems fine, but the base gasket has just started leaking in the same area as Brians did.

I have been interupted during the strip down, so can't yet confirm the exact area or cause of leakage as yet.

If those elongated head to cylinder o rings won't take more than 350 deg F, then I'm not surprised that they are breaking down.

My 850, in the tuning specs from the PO was running rich, but the same gasket fitted up with a MLS gasket, had severely deteriated as well. It just looked like someone had assembled it with some tube sealant. Incidently, the engine was previously assembled by a Suzuki dealership.

I'll be re-checking all mating surfaces for distortion very closely before it's next re-assembly. I don't enjoy pulling an engine down after only 9000 kms.

[49er]

We've been conned, big time!!

Just completed the top end disassembly. Head and barrells separated surprisingly, with ease. Very little scraping will be required on either surface. The barrells also lifted off the crankcase cleanly.

I'd say that Jeff is right on the mark when he suggested that these Vesrah sets had been poorly copied in Taiwan. I found some disturbing anomolies when investigating.

1. The cam chain tunnel gasket is in tact, but had been partially displaced due to insufficiect clamping pressure. This has resulted in the elastomer material on the head gasket braking down in the area adjacent to the #2 cylinder sealing ring. If I had kept running the engine like that, it would have eventually blown a head gasket between the #2 bore and the cam chain tunnel.

2. Besides the elastomer material breaking down on the head gasket surface, the gasket itself was not designed to cover the elongated o ring, as the Multi Layer Steel gaskets do. Because of this, there's not enough clamping pressure onto the o ring and it's allowed to walk around in it's groove, under differing temperate cycles.

3. There are 2 contributing factors to my base gasket failure. Firstly, the tear drop shaped o rings that fit into the recesses on the outer rear studs, are undersized and consquently not sealing properly when the barrells are torqued up. I have checked them against an OEM item and their cross sections are way smaller. They don't seem to be breaking down yet, but have seriously distorted and allow oil to make direct contact with the base gasket.
The second concern is that there is evidence of a reduction of surface pressure on the base gasket in the area of the leak. This is probably caused by distortion of the cylinder base or poor machining. I still need to do some cleaning and measuring off a surface table to confirm my suspicions.

In summary, the gasket set is not up to spec. As Brain said, it's a POS. I don't have any experience with earlier Vesrah sets, so can't comment on their design around the can chain tunnel. It's a shame that pirating companies can't easily be held accountable.

Now in the process of taking some pics before cleaning.

[bwringer]

#1. overheating rubber totally cooked to stiff solid (350++ F. degrees)

Nope. The engine ran beautifully, still runs beautifully, and has never overheated in the slightest.

#2. under torque - due to not re-torquing after multiple heat cycles - the cylinders moved between the head and case block breaking the brittle overheated paper.

Nope. The gasket was not overheated, and the cylinder head was faithfully re-torqued at the specified mileages.

#3 over torque can do similar effects to the base gasket too.

Nope.

I have used veshrah for many many years. I have torn down my own engines years after the build- kawasaki dealership work order history - air and liquid cooled engines- to have all o rings in plyable condition and lots of work scraping the base gasket that sealed itself to the aluminum.

I have also used Vesrah many times with excellent results. The reason I posted originally is that this is a recent and surprising change for the worse in the quality of their materials and manufacturing. I have no way of knowing if its an isolated case, or just one bad lot.

I have yet to have any complaints to the quality of the vesrah product.
never got a bad set in over 18 years.

See above. Now you've seen a credible complaint, a couple of them, and I definitely got bad parts, specifically the o-rings. I suspect there are many other bad sets out there as well.

heat and pressure will turn coal into diamonds. heat and pressure damaged your gaskets and o rings. (or lack of proper pressure)

Nope, shoddy materials destroyed the o-rings and the gasket. The engine was never over heated, and nothing was ever over- or under-torqued.

As I posted above, the cam chain tunnel o-ring crumbled to powder when touched. Yes, it was properly installed. No, I did not attack it with a blow torch at any point. To be fair, this area was not leaking -- the head gasket was sufficient to seal it.

However, the o-rings at the rear corners were badly swollen, and the base gasket was extremely brittle, and shattered to pieces at a touch -- more brittle than I've seen any OEM gasket, even on engines 30 years old.

The corner o-rings swelled and softened to the point that they crumpled inward and allowed oil to contact the base gasket, whereupon the oil started seeping from a crack in the brittle base gasket.

After sitting on my bench overnight, the o-rings returned to a more normal size, but were still damaged. I have compared new Suzuki o-rings directly with new Vesrah o-rings, and the vesrah o-rings are smaller in diameter and thickness. The Suzuki o-rings I installed fit perfectly in the space available, while Vesrah o-rings have excess room around the o-rings.


One other possibility you didn't mention was chemical attack. At no point was there anything except clean engine oil in my bike, and no, there was never a gasoline leak or any gas in the oil for any reason. No harsh chemicals were ever used to clean the bike, nor was a hot engine ever sprayed with cold water. The bike was ridden daily and perfectly maintained, although I will admit that I rarely clean it.

better luck next time and get rid of the haynes/clymer toilet paper books- they cause more trouble than they solve for non trained technitions.

Nope. The manuals had nothing to do with poor o-ring and gasket materials, and their instructions and specs for installation and torquing the gaskets, o-rings, cylinders, and head are identical to the factory manual. I am far from inexperienced.

Luck's got nothing to do with it and there won't be a next time -- I will not purchase any more Vesrah gasket kits, and I carefully described my experiences here so that others may have the information to make their decisions.

My conclusion based on many past good experiences with Vesrah gasket kits is that Vesrah recently started using shoddy materials in parts of their gasket kits, and therefore should not be used. You can use the information I've presented and make your own conclusions.

Perhaps they've fixed the problems, and perhaps they haven't. It's not worth the risk to me, and I've since learned that the Suzuki gasket kit is far more complete as well as higher quality, and is thus a much better value. Suzuki gaskets also fit much better.

I actually have an unopened Vesrah gasket kit that I bought when I was preparing to fix the base gasket leak. When I disassembled the engine and found the defects, I ordered OEM gaskets and o-rings before reassembling the engine.

I don't feel that I can ethically sell a potentially defective gasket kit to anyone else, so it remains on my shelf unopened. I might use one of the case gaskets from the kit at some point, but never any of the internal gaskets or o-rings.

(But if after reading all this, someone is still convinced that Vesrah gaskets are high quality, I'll make you a great deal on that Vesrah kit... )

I installed Suzuki o-rings and base gaskets last September and the base gasket area has remained oil-tight for the last 6,000+ miles. This rules out the casting or gasket surface defect theory.

However, I made the poor decision of installing a Cometic head gasket since I could not source a Suzuki head gasket at the time, and the shoddy Cometic head gasket is now weeping around the corners where the oil passages are. So far, not enough to drip on the ground, but enough to make the sides of the engine dirty. I'll get annoyed enough to replace the head gasket with a Suzuki OEM item at some point soon.

[pete]

So now I have a question... gasket sets for my '81 450 are now discontinued and I've had no luck finding a NOS one at this point.

I believe I can get Athena ones pretty easily here in Aus, but I also have yet to finish compiling the list of all internal gaskets individually to see if I can get NOS ones.

So if I can't source NOS ones, what's the best option? Get some gasket paper and cut my own? Athena?

[hampshirehog]

The paper gaskets from all the established names seem to be ok. It's the head gaskets and rubber seals that seem to be causing problems. Having said that, I've used Athena sets quite a few times and they've been fine with everything (though not 100% complete - the odd seal etc missing).

[pete]

Thanks Hampshirehog. I've done searches around here and have found mixed results and opinions on Athena.

Anyways, I'll finish my gasket list and see what I can get NOS first. Won't be cheap in the short term, but might solve a lot of frustration down the track.

[LeMango]

Replaced a leaky head gasket on the 550 with a Vesrah less than a year ago. Sunday we looked down at Ryan's boots after he had ridden it a little bit - they were very shiney. Uh-oh. Took a look and sure enough - leaking - on both left and right sides. #$(*#&