Magic Gaskets

[BrdWAtti2d]

Over the weekend I changed out my old cruddy opti for a new shiny one. In the process, of course, I had to pull the water pump, which I had recently changed out (About 6 months ago, no doubt the source of the opti issue) When I pulled the water pump the gaskets seemed to have magically disappeared. The only thing left was the ultra Copper RTV used to seal them, of the usual scraping to remove the old gasket material, just peeling off the old RTV. However, the pump was not leaking, more than likely due to the Ultra Copper RTV. I was just wondering if anyone else had experienced such drastic gasket deterioration and why would this happen?

[Joe 1320]

Over the weekend I changed out my old cruddy opti for a new shiny one. In the process, of course, I had to pull the water pump, which I had recently changed out (About 6 months ago, no doubt the source of the opti issue) When I pulled the water pump the gaskets seemed to have magically disappeared. The only thing left was the ultra Copper RTV used to seal them, of the usual scraping to remove the old gasket material, just peeling off the old RTV. However, the pump was not leaking, more than likely due to the Ultra Copper RTV. I was just wondering if anyone else had experienced such drastic gasket deterioration and why would this happen?

Simple really. Ultra copper was never used by the factory as a water pump gasket. Someone obviously did a water pump swap and used RTV instead of the proper paper gaskets.

[BrdWAtti2d]

No that's not the case. I did the water pump install myself, put gaskets in there and sealed them with ultra copper RTV. This was less than 6 months ago. But when I took the pump off over the weekend the gaskets are gone, all that was left was the RTV. Or at least anything that resembles a gasket. There was little or nothing to scrape. Although it wasn't leaking, it's a little disarming.

[Joe 1320]

No that's not the case. I did the water pump install myself, put gaskets in there and sealed them with ultra copper RTV. This was less than 6 months ago. But when I took the pump off over the weekend the gaskets are gone, all that was left was the RTV. Or at least anything that resembles a gasket. There was little or nothing to scrape. Although it wasn't leaking, it's a little disarming.

It's not going to disappear. If it's anywhere, it's bonded to either the block or the water pump. There is nowhere for it to go.

[BrdWAtti2d]

That's sort of the point of my post, where did it go? I promise there was no paper left, just rubbery RTV. Normally you would have to clean off the remnants of the paper gasket which, again normally, fuse themselves to the pump, block, or both. The face of both the block and water pump were abnormally clean and took very little prep. Is this some weird property of the RTV?

[97LT1Z28]

Did you put RTV on BOTH sides of the gasket? If so, it's probably still there but surrounded on both sides by the RTV.....

That's the way I always install the gaskets . . . . .

[BrdWAtti2d]

Yes, RTV on both sides. Everyone thinks I've lost it but there was nothing there but RTV and I cleaned both the water pump and block to bare metal. All the water pump bolts were torqued to spec. It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen.