Gasket smear or not to smear?

[pepperami]

The new clutch cover arrived in the post today And old Peppers is happy.
So now I am going to put the new cover on with a new gasket.

My old way of putting on a gasket like that would be to give the gasket a smear of Wellseal or Holmyar before putting it on.
However this time, when I took the old gasket off, I noticed it had been put on dry.

So do I do the same or give the new gasket a smear?
I seek your wisdom oh mighty BCF.
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I am the sum total of my own existence, what went before makes me who I am now!

[RhynoCZ]

If you use a fresh paper gasket, then no sealant should be necessary. In fact, I hate people who use any sealants where there should be none.
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'87 Honda XBR 500, '96 Kawasaki ZX7R P1, '90 Honda CB-1, '88 Kawasaki GPz550, MZ 150 ETZ
'95 Mercedes-Benz w202 C200 CGI, '98 Mercedes-Benz w210 E200 Kompressor

[pepperami]

[Kickstart]

Hi

Normal gasket I tend to smear with a little grease. Any with a seal that built in I put on dry

All the best

Katy
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Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[RhynoCZ]

It's your motorcycle, so do as you please. I just wouldn't, as paper gaskets are cheap (you can even fabricate your own). Good tip to lube the gasket (engine oil), I tend to do that with all the rubber seals and I can't see it making any harm to a paper gasket.

I just hate sealants though, especialy the red one. I bought motorcycles and cars, where this red death was smeared everywhere. Someone even used it to seal a carburetor bowl, well long story short the fuel ate through the sealant and the bowl started to leak in about a year after I bought the motorcycle and clogged up the jet and a lot of it went through the engine as well (my fix, a new rubber seal, made by a friend of mine, for free). On the ZX7R, someone bent the plate for bolts/nuts for the exhaust silencer (the sealing ring was not a perfect fit), so he put 2mm thick layer of the red sealant there, which failed hard, obviously (My fix: bent it back and use a proper exhaust sealant, which cost me about 2 ponds). And he also glued the clutch cover to the engine, you could see he used too much of it as it was driping down the crank case and quite possibly inside the engine. Lucky me, the clutch was alright, so I did not have to take the cover off.
The worst I've seen so far, was the red sealant used instead of a proper metal head gasket. The sealant being smeared so bad, that it was clogging up the oil and coolant lines in the head/cylinders.

Fun fact: The red sealant, as described above, shall not be exposed to petrol nor high temperatures.
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'87 Honda XBR 500, '96 Kawasaki ZX7R P1, '90 Honda CB-1, '88 Kawasaki GPz550, MZ 150 ETZ
'95 Mercedes-Benz w202 C200 CGI, '98 Mercedes-Benz w210 E200 Kompressor