gasket scraper tool

[singletrack]

I came up with a simple and effective solution for scraping gunk off the mating surfaces of the valve cover. I took a piece of copper 1/2 pipe, cut off about 1/2 an inch, then cut it lengthwise and hammered it flat. Then cut it lengthwise again so you end up with a something like a 3/4" by 1/2" rectangle. Filed the short end so it had a bevel like a hand plane blade. Then took a 5/8" x 5" dowel and cut a 1/2 slot in the end with a hacksaw to receive the butt end of the rectangle. I also whittled off some of the dowel near the blade to allow a shallow angle in use. Wrapped some electrical tape around the slot to keep it all in place. Since its copper, its not hard enough to scratch the aluminum, but its hard enough to shave off the old gasket sealer. The beveled edge works great for this.

 

[Adler]

Hard to visualize this, picture?

 

[1948man]

So you cut off a half inch which left you with a 1/2" deep hoop with a circumference a little over 1 and 1/2". Then you only used half of the circumference and flattened it out so you had 1/2" by 3/4"? Is that it?

 

[Steve]

Hard to visualize this, picture?

.

 

[singletrack]

A picture is worth 1000 words

A picture is worth 1000 words

So here you go. I peeled off the electrical tape so you can see the slot. Its got a "tan line" where the tape was

 

[singletrack]

So you cut off a half inch which left you with a 1/2" deep hoop with a circumference a little over 1 and 1/2". Then you only used half of the circumference and flattened it out so you had 1/2" by 3/4"? Is that it?

Yep. Sorry, my original post was a little hard to follow. And I hadn't even been drinking.

 

[Steve]

Full-size view:



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