What Is A Gasket And How Does It Work?

Put quite simply, a gasket is a mechanical seal

. These seals allow for the mating of two surfaces that have irregularities, like an engine block and a cylinder head. Throughout your car, many gaskets keep fluid transfer from being exposed to the outside world. Gaskets also maintain a high level of compression, and when the compression inside of the cylinder causes a hole in the gasket, this is called a blown gasket The main problem with gaskets is that they will eventually wear out and fail over many years. The plus is that installing gaskets (at least the common types) is relatively easy, but the ones that often break are extremely difficult to replace.

Perhaps the most important gasket in your car is the head gasket. This gasket sits inside the car's engine and seals the space between the engine block and the cylinder head. Without this seal in place, the engine would lose compression and leak fluids, which can lead to ruining the entire engine.

How to Check for Broken Gaskets

Since a blown head gasket can cause damage and force major repairs, it is very important to regularly check for the signs of a failing gasket. While this is true for any and all gaskets in your car, the head gasket is the worst possible gasket to break, and therefore, the most important. If your car is consistently overheating or losing coolant, it could very well be a serious problem with your head gasket. In addition, if during your usual car maintenance and fluid checks your dipstick has froth on it, it could represent coolants being mixed in with your oil due to a head gasket problem.

Replacing a Broken Gasket

Under no circumstances should an everyday consumer even consider replacing a head gasket. Replacing the head gasket involves removing the exhaust and intake manifold, valve train, and finally the head itself. While this may not sound very involved, it means disconnecting an array of sensors and completely unhooking the ignition system. After checking the Head Gasket, it has to be replaced perfectly, each bolt reattached in the correct order. And this is all assuming that the blown gasket did not damage the engine, as that would necessitate engine repair that are even more involved and complex. Realistically, if you know little enough to even ask for directions on replacing a broken gasket, you should take your vehicle to professional car repairer.

Post-Replacement Gasket Maintenance

After having your head gasket replaced, oftentimes, it is not the end of the line for your bad luck. In order to keep the new head gasket working properly, it needs to be re-torqued after a short amount of driving, post replacement. Hopefully the body shop where you got the head gasket replace initially will perform this repair, and make you aware of the procedure. But, if they do not, you will need to figure out the amount of mileage you can put on your new gasket before taking it to have said maintenance done. However, despite its description, the repair is actually nothing major, and should be fairly low priced.

by: Tom Burns

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