Out and About on your Laverda.No bull,Just photos

If I doubt a gasket, it get's a smear of Wellseal. Runny, so application by brush or roller. Not sure if it is a worldwide product, or just UK.
 
Paul Marx said:
I've no problem with the green gaskets from Athena.
Neither does Keith Nairn.
Paul
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No idea if my green gaskets came from Athena, but ... lucky you. I'm decidedly unhappy with whatever these green ones are. In 50 years of ownership I've never had gaskets leak. If I could get original ones I'd jump at them.
 
Tippie said:
Some of the green gaskets now supplied are as hard as metal from new, unlike the original grey ones from the factory. I have checked engine covers on a glass plate and can find no warpage, despite them dripping oil with new gaskets. The only way I have got them to seal is with a minimal smear of silicone (I will try to get some of the Loctite but it isn't readily available here) and letting it cure over night before filling with oil. Using silicone and then filling with oil had it still leak.
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Many of the flatter engine covers are horribly warped by now, especially the small RH shifter cover and the 750 primary cover. This is very often due to the over-exuberant but futile attempts of DPOs over-tightening the fixing screws to stop yet another leak... instead of fitting a new, un-squashed gasket. The softer the gaskets are, the easier it is to distort the cover, the 2 beforementioned covers are not at all stiff and will distort easily under slightly uneven pressure at the screws. The more give the gasket allows, the more distortion will occur.

To reassure you Quentin, the original gaskets have the same problems as the green Athena/Centauro/whatever gaskets. I still have a couple original 55 120 007, if the shifter cover is warped, they piss just as much as any other...

At least the shifter cover can usually be reclaimed quite easily, albeit with a fair amount of elbow grease, a flat surface and several sheets of 120 grit emery usually gets them near to perfect. Not so easy with the primary cover, but there are machines capable of doing it pretty precisely. Companies specialising in pipe construction use a special flat grind/hone machine to true up connecting flanges after welding.

Especially Hylomar should be applied sparingly, it washes off easily but doesn't dissolve, excess can clog the oil strainer quite effectively. Same goes for all silikone-based sealers. Loctite 518 usually does the job, but sometimes silikone is the only solution...

piet
 
Thanks Piet. What gets me is that the covers have never leaked before (most recently last year) and I am the only DPO :cool: and not accustomed to overtightening fasteners.
 
piranha-bro2 said:
No idea if my green gaskets came from Athena, but ... lucky you. I'm decidedly unhappy with whatever these green ones are. In 50 years of ownership I've never had gaskets leak. If I could get original ones I'd jump at them.
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In the 40 plus years I've owned Laverda motorcycles, every time I bought some parts from Phil Todd who lived a couple hours drive away plus one cross Channel ferry, I'd buy a complete set of 750 gaskets.
I have enough now to last me out.
Plus, I bought a couple of dealers stocks, including, you guessed it, gaskets.

Paul
 
sfcpiet said:
Especially Hylomar should be applied sparingly, it washes off easily but doesn't dissolve, excess can clog the oil strainer quite effectively. Same goes for all silikone-based sealers. Loctite 518 usually does the job, but sometimes silikone is the only solution...

piet
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Hylomar just brings back memories of it oozing out of all the gasket surfaces on British bikes back in the day, still dripping oil. Maybe it is better today.
Loctite 518 is about €100 incl post for 50ml here. Better than an oil leak though.
 
Tippie said:
Hylomar just brings back memories of it oozing out of all the gasket surfaces on British bikes back in the day, still dripping oil. Maybe it is better today.
Loctite 518 is about €100 incl post for 50ml here. Better than an oil leak though.
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I think that says more about the tolerances and ham-fisted spannering on many of those bikes than about Hylomar. Been using it on metal to metal joints on cars, bikes, etc. for nearly 50 years and trust it 100%. Knew a couple of Rolls Royce Derby engineers in the’70’s/80’s who used it on gas turbines. And their bikes.
 
Hylomar was recommended by Rolls Sealer. Isn't there a Blue or Green? That Loctite 518 sounds like the best. For the first engine rebuild I had done, 64 Bonnie the bloke used STAGG absolute crap, I was scraping it off stuff for the next few years. It set like glass, brittle and hard, ended up in the oil stainer and the bike still leaked like a sieve. It's pretty well known but always a good idea to check for gasket goo in the bottom of the cover fixing bolt holes. Bolts don't work well if they bottom on that shit before the cover clamps up tight. I know everybody already knows that but some might not. Simple stuff gets missed a lot. Q maybe look at engine case pressure and more breathing ability?
 
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Vince said:
Hylomar was recommended by Rolls Sealer. Isn't there a Blue or Green? That Loctite 518 sounds like the best. For the first engine rebuild I had done, 64 Bonnie the bloke used STAGG absolute crap, I was scraping it off stuff for the next few years. It set like glass, brittle and hard, ended up in the oil stainer and the bike still leaked like a sieve. It's pretty well known but always a good idea to check for gasket goo in the bottom of the cover fixing bolt holes. Bolts don't work well if they bottom on that shit before the cover clamps up tight. I know everybody already knows that but some might not. Simple stuff gets missed a lot. Q maybe look at engine case pressure and more breathing ability?
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I’ve only used blue. They used to use Stag at sea on steam pipe flanges for example, and on motor ships too, probably on all services.
 
Stag is a plumbing sealant or so I discovered later, I couldn't believe it was used on my Bonnie. The Engine builder was a very qualified Gun Smith, and recommended by a few people. Years later I saw the E Type his Apprentice built, that was some job of work. The Apentice did great work later becoming a world-renowned Film Armorer and Special Effects bloke.
 
Tippie said:
Hylomar just brings back memories of it oozing out of all the gasket surfaces on British bikes back in the day, still dripping oil. Maybe it is better today.
Loctite 518 is about €100 incl post for 50ml here. Better than an oil leak though.
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It was red Hermetite people used to splodge all over british bikes as I remember, Hylomar was way too expensive.
 
pf1 said:
It was red Hermetite people used to splodge all over british bikes as I remember, Hylomar was way too expensive.
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Hermetite- curious smell, goes hard, looks shit ,doesn’t work.
Hylomar- is petrol proof , looks blue, does work .
Yama/Kawa/Honda Bond- doesn’t go hard, looks silver works really well but does separate in tube and needs a massage.
Wurth- Green surface sealant/ Kermit’s Blood, lime green, takes up small gaps/ rough surface or even fine cracks, works very well, recommended by BMW for their gearbox’s - my go to if all else fails.
Wellseal-Old fashioned, super thin, non setting , ideal for using with a gasket to aid removal .
Clear silicone from builders merchant- clear and does work and can be used on exhaust pipe headers/ silencers.
All of the above are victims of “P” for plenty which ends up blocking strainers, oil ways etc.
When I was at the Triumph factory at Hinckley I was allowed to go on the engine line, the gasket sealant man applied a fine bead of sealant in the middle of the gasket face, looping once around each bolt hole- he did it really fast like icing a birthday cake.
Remember , what squirts out the outside has also squirted out the inside. I tend not to use Silicone & a gasket because the gaskets tends to squirm under compression and can move in or out.
 
Tippie said:
Hylomar just brings back memories of it oozing out of all the gasket surfaces on British bikes back in the day, still dripping oil. Maybe it is better today.
Loctite 518 is about €100 incl post for 50ml here. Better than an oil leak though.
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I use Loctite 518. I've no idea of the price, I'm still using the syringe I bought in the 90s.
Paul
 
I guess the question is which of the options is best suited to use with an actual gasket - metal to metal i can't go past Three Bond, but yet to find the perfect metal-gasket-metal infill.
 
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