Thermostat Cover Gasket

[fjmuurling]

The thermostat housing of my SE keeps leaking between the flanges where the gasket is. Made new gaskets several times but no luck, even used Permatex® Aviation Form-A-Gasket® No. 3 Sealant as a gasket dressing but no luck.

So my guess my gasket material (Frenzelit novapress Multi II, 0.5 mm thick) is not the right one.

The flanges of the waterpump and the elbow are straight, the thermostat is a new Lotus one

Any tips / trics for "closing" this problem are welcome.

Maybe some suggestions of what kind of gasket material to use.

[sailorbob]

There is not enough material on the OE gasket to figure out what the manufacturers name  is but it is 0.8 mm thick if that helps.

[fjmuurling]

Thanks Derek,

I guess my problem is the small ridge on the outer cirumfence of the thermostat, this needs to be compensated for by the gasket, a thicker gasket sounds much better.

[CarBuff]

Perhaps, try TWO lotus gaskets?

 

In the USA I can go into a parts store and ask for a thermostat gasket for a 283 C.I. 'small block' Chevy V8 (very common here). But, in the Netherlands...Hmmmm.

 

 

 

[fjmuurling]

In the end I "closed" the problem.

The small ridge on the outer cirumfence of the thermostat sits a bit higher than the flange of the waterpump.

The gasket material I used after making a template in my PCB software is made by Elring. I used ther Abil N gasket material with a thickness of 1 mm. The compressibilty of this material is bit higher than standard thin material.

As for the template I used the following dimensions of the holes / distances:

• Mounting Holes Dia: 8.5 mm
• Thermostat Hole Dia: 52 mm
• Hole Center to center distance: 36.5 mm (all three holes are inline)

The thermostat hole ended up about 0.5 mm smaller when I made the gasket. I didn't have a bigger piece of brass round stock which I used to cut along with a sharp knife.