I bought a used OEM clutch cover off Ebay for MY custom paint job. The cover has some sort of a silvery grey gasket on it. It is not steel. It can be scraped off with my fingernail and it feels like some kind of a plastic film. It is not liquid gasket because the area it covers is so precisely shaped just like a gasket would be. Perhaps some kind of a sealant applied to the OEM gasket before installation. ...OR --is that the OEM gasket? I've been advised that the OEM clutch cover gasket can be reused and I assumed it was a thin steel gasket. Seems like whatever that is I have on the Ebay cover should be scraped off before using the fiber gasket that came with my EVO shift star. What do you think?

It's the gasket. Looks worse for wear so I'm taking it off.

http://zx1441r.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3587&p=34017#p34017

It's the latest sealer sprayed on the OE gaskets. This is the release you are seeing. The cover is sprayed black at the gasket surface. You can:
a. Stone the release only down to the paint.
b. Contact/brake clean the release off with a shop rag leaves the paint on. (best choice imo)
c. With a "new" straight edge razor(s), drag the release off and the paint.

You could stone the paint off too; depends on your approach. Notice I'm not going to introduce a swirling (drilling) device that may leave a gully along a flat surface. The engine case has a mirror finish almost. That's the same surface on the cover, sans the paint hiding it. Razor wise, you can see if you're cutting out aluminum along with the paint. A drill is too late.

Every 'new' gasket goes on dry, be it paper or steel. Maybe a dab at the case splits. Or say none>> the gsk breaks clean. You took your manpills if it seeps down the road thousands of miles, the road dust just clings to it. A shot of brake clean drips it off for the next so many thousands... not drips the next day with a drop on the floor in the morning.

Thanks, Hub. It seemed to come off without much fuss just using my fingernail. I will probably go with a plastic paint scraper and try some of that brake cleaner too if it seems to help getting the last bits off.

The less foreign material (bond/sili/cinch) on the mating surfaces, the less a ball of bond floats into a gear, is chewed small enough to enter the pump, then etc... pass thanks.

1. Sweat = seeps for a long time. Road grime builds in one spot.
2. Weep = water pump mechanical hole. Looks green but dry.
3. Leak = on the floor.

Agree with you on the unnecessary contamination risk idea. I think the clutch case is one of the less vulnerable areas though. Extraneous stuff is going to wash down to the oil pan and get trapped by the screen or the oil filter. ...not that I want more extraneous stuff on my screen, but we already have a lot of clutch fibers coming loose in this compartment.

* Last updated by: Rook on 6/26/2017 @ 5:31 PM *