What would you do?

[Guest]

Hi All. I'm looking for some opinions or suggestions about this issue. Some of you probably ran into this before. While cleaning the old gasket material of my head, I noticed an indentation from corrosion I guess. There appears to be just this one spot on the mating surface.It doesn't appear to reach all the way between the combustion chambers. I thought maybe a little silicone in that one spot may help to seal the head gasket when I button things back up. There was always good compression on those 2 cyls so it seems like it was sealing before.It's about half the size of your small fingernail and just in this spot.Anybody run into this before or have any thoughts on this?..Nick.....Those are the wifey's nails by the way. My hands haven't been that clean for a long time

[Nessism]

That spot doesn't matter, it's no where near a critical sealing surface. I had some similar spots and my machinist said they were fine. Photo below shows surfaced head with corrosion spots remaining.

[crazy canuck]

That's good to know. Should I use a little silicone in that dimple when I put it back together?.. Man that sure is a clean head. Did you paint that one?

[Big T]

No silicone, anywhere,ever

[bwringer]

Agreed on all points. That area isn't important, and silicone belongs in the garbage can, not on your Suzuki.

Look at a head gasket -- the only areas that need to seal are the metal rings around the combustion chambers and the four oil passage holes at the corners. The rest of the gasket is only there to assure the proper spacing when you torque it down.

[81cr450]

A straight edge?

I work in a machine shop assembling motors & doing various machining, have done for the last 7 years. We use a spray tack copper coat on head gaskets, all but the grey carbon fiber ones anyway. Silicone yes if your using the right silicone for the application. Its copper dust in a sprayable silicone base . I however would question overall straightness on that head, $40 to mill it is probably cheaper than the headgasket you'd waste if it doesnt seal. On a side note I have actually used copper coat on a used MLS head gasket in a bind & had it work. It was just on a kx500 of my own that I wanted to go ride for the weekend. I wouldnt try it with anything I depended on.