Weeping

[Brendan W]

I was hoping you'd update on that, as I bought an NE gasket set on the chance it would be ok in the long term. I've already installed some Viton valve stem seals, so next is to complete the assembly soon-ish. I have an OEM base gasket in stock, so I'll use that instead of the NE one.

The old base gasket came off eventually revealing a load of gouge marks. I sprayed the NE gasket with high build high temperature aluminium paint after double checking with the manufacturer that it actually had aluminium in it. So far so good despite it being the famous green colour
The local bike shop let me borrow their tube of the special something bond for the tunnel ring on the top deck in return for a small donation to the RNLI

[Grimly]

The old base gasket came off eventually revealing a load of gouge marks. I sprayed the NE gasket with high build high temperature aluminium paint after double checking with the manufacturer that it actually had aluminium in it. So far so good despite it being the famous green colour
The local bike shop let me borrow their tube of the special something bond for the tunnel ring on the top deck in return for a small donation to the RNLI

I still haven't removed the second half of the base gasket - gradually softened, scraped, softened, scraped my way down through half of its thickness, but it's like linoleum. It's genuinely the hardest gasket I've encountered, but 38 years of heat and pressure will do that, obviously.
I'll get it off eventually, but the difficulty is leaving minimal marks. I wondered about the Roloc abrasive 3M scrubbers, how effective they'd be against this, but it's a gamble. If there was a deadline on it, I'd have dropped the liners out and got the base machined flat, no problem, and not really much cost.