Head Gasket O-rings? Required?

Perfectly dry head gaskets on 70 year old blocks and heads aren't a good idea. That head gasket needed to be coated/painted with something on both sides.  I'm assuming the four O-rings you have are for the valve cover nuts/washers.

Did you warm up the tractor and re torque it to spec afterward? I have never used any thing on a fiber gasket and never had a leak on these little engines. I would guess that dirty holes in the block could be the problem or something along that line. Most all of those blocks I have cleaned had crap in the threaded holes that came up when I run a tap in when it came out.

When I was in business, I had three things I would fire an employee for. Never had to do it because they always complied. Always run a thread tap down thru each head bolt hole and blow them out and then bench wire brush off the head bolt threads clean and use light grease on the threads for lube. Clean, clean, clean. You can't do a good job of torqueing a head bolt if the threads are dirty, dry and rusty. We never worked on B's and C's but I can assure you the head gasket would have been painted with something on BOTH sides.

Might try Permatex Hi-Tack spray.  Give it time to get tacky before assembly.
We used it alot on car & tractor engines and found it very suitable for Oliver Diesels when nothing else would hold.

Did you have the manifold on the engine?  One or more of the studs may go thru to the water jacket.

head and case checked for flatness, and also checked once the sleeves were it.

-Good point about the exhaust studs. I don't know if they are blind holes to the jacket, bet the pressure leak was form the head gasket.

Autopsy tomorrow.

shellac also works good as a sealer, too...

I hope this post will help someone in the future!


The head gasket included in my gasket kit was not labeled for Top/Bottom/Front/Back etc.

I initially picked the orientation that matched the holes as close as possible. The water pump was not on the block at the time. Later when I installed the water pump I noticed that some of the headgasket was overlapping the block and was crushed by the water pump. I chalked that to poor quality and standards by the gasket company. (clearly this was not the case).

I installed the head gasket backwards. Don't be like me! When you install a new gasket make sure the front of the gasket is flush with the engine block and not sticking out. The water passage on the rear of the head will not seal if the gasket is backwards!!!!

Time to order a replacement gasket and try again.

There ya go! I now remember doing the same years ago. When I went to put the water pump on I removed the head and turned the gasket around.
When I was pulling I used the same head gasket several times when trying out different grinds, valves, and porting. I reused the head gaskets until some of it picked up on the block or head. I never painted them with any thing. The idea back in the 1940's to paint the gaskets with aluminum paint was an anti seize idea to reuse the head gaskets at the time. I ground the valves on my 1952 Chevy and reused the head gasket that had been painted with aluminum paint. Back when people didn't have a government safety net people had to think about a possible slim financial future year. That is why your ancestors didn't throw many things away.