cylinder head gasket corner o-rings?

[Chuck78]

On all 3 GS engines I have torn apart, + 2 cylinder jugs that I got used with head gaskets still attached, the 4 corner stud holes on the head gasket all had a rubber oil retention o-ring or rubber gasket in place inside of the larger opening in the head gasket, with a gap around the stud hole for oil flow.

On all of the fiches I pull up on babbit's, partsoutlaw, etc, there is no separate notation for these, and when I ordered the 11141-49410 8-valve GS1100G 73mm bore MLS head gasket that superceeded all of the older head gaskets on the bigger bore bikes (78-79 gs1000, 79 gs850, all gs1100g's), it did not come with these.

I have been told by a few members on here about the 49410 gasket being what I needed for my 72mm piston'ed GS750 big bore build, and that you are supposed to delete the cam chain tensioner o-ring seal on older models when using this head gasket. Are these corner o rings deleted also? Did they typically come with the older style head gaskets, & is that why I don't see them listed anywhere? It sort of looks like they may be drawn into the head gasket on the fiche drawings, but hard to tell.

[Chuck78]

Also, it seems that the factory service manuals dont help confirm the existence of these o-rings that I have found. The factory service manual also seems to skip a step in installing either the cylinder block or head, I can't rememver which, in both the 77 gs750 manual AND the 82GS1100G manuals... peculiar.

[rustybronco]

When I tore apart a GS1100GK there were no o-ring's used with the stock MLS head gasket.

Are these corner o rings deleted also? Did they typically come with the older style head gaskets, & is that why I don't see them listed anywhere? It sort of looks like they may be drawn into the head gasket on the fiche drawings, but hard to tell.

The do come on the original composition head gaskets.

[Chuck78]

Alright, well that answers my question, thanks Rusty.

I'm glad the machine shop surfaced my head for me when I had it in for a valve job, as I learned on VW diesels, an MLS head gasket is the toughest, but is very sensitive to the trueness of the head and deck. It must be very flat to get a good seal.