As automobiles have evolved so have the methods and products used to seal them. It's important to chose the right one, and to use it properly. Here to give us some tips about the modern stuff is Pete Rohde, district manager for Permatex.  Pete, welcome to Goss’ Garage. All of these new products and there seems to be one common mistake that people make all the time, what is that?

ROHDE: Pat, it’s that people use an excessive amount of silicone adhesives when they’re making gaskets or dressing gaskets. It’s real simple to use, you just apply a thin bead, encircle the bolt hole and wind it right on around to extend all the way through the entire piece that you’re trying to seal. Once you’ve done that you apply the gasket, put the thing down on the cylinder head, bolt it down, allow about an hour for it to tack up, then fill it with fluids, the vehicle can be put back into service then, Pat.

GOSS: Okay, so follow the directions really.

ROHDE: Absolutely.

GOSS: There are a lot of products these days and you have an assortment of them here. What’s the difference? How does the consumer make a choice?

ROHDE: Well our first generation product was this one here which was our Indian Head Shellac developed in 1909 and from there went fast forward to 1979, these two products the blue and the red silicones were used for ‘79 and back. And forward you go from 1980 and forward you’d use these four products and if you had an imported car you’d use our Ultra Gray for that..

GOSS: I see, okay, and again there’s information on the packaging and what else could they do?

ROHDE: They can also quiz their local counterman at their auto parts store and he can guide them for the correct product for their car.

GOSS: Now something else that a lot of people may not be aware of that’s very important these days are threadlockers, and you have a bunch of them, but you have the two most popular ones here, the red one and the blue one. Tell us about those.

ROHDE: Well Pat, red is a high strength product and it’s used for high torque conditions or high RPM cars and it’s a real simple product to use. You just dial out about a quarter-inch bead of the material, apply it to the bolt surface, wind the nut into it, and it’s going to cure anaerobically to a resin product and will be one with that bolt.

GOSS: I see, okay, now this one is high strength. What about the blue one?

ROHDE: Blue one is medium strength and you use that for fenders on motorcycles, for example you can use it for that.  A lot of the hang on pieces for a lot of automobiles, medium would be fine.  .

GOSS:  Okay, if they use the red, it requires heat to get it apart.

ROHDE:  That’s correct Pat.  You’re going to use heat, you’re going to reflow the resin epoxy back to its liquid state, conventional hand tools.

GOSS:  Okay Pete, thank you so much.

ROHDE:  Thanks Pat.

 

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