I'm working with a guy on a 89 Coupe, L98. We're reassembling the top end. He told me the other day that when he installed the heads, he'd used copper gasket sealer on the head gaskets.
I heard you don't do that & I never have, so I don't know what the end result will be. I'm certain the heads would be difficult to remove.
Frankly, I'm leary of the aluminum heads warping since I'll be purchasing the Vette from him.

Have anyone ever done this before?
Did/do the heads mate properly with the block?
Should I replace the gaskets now (before we get too far along with the work) or will this be OK, for now?

BTW, happy 4th of July. Thanks to the vets for your service!

 

Should be no problem, proper torquing is the most important thing. Why did you have the top end off in the first place?

 

If you're talking about something like Permatex's Copper Seal, I wouldn't worry about it. It's not really neccesary in most cases but won't hurt anything. I use it frequently as a little added insurance on older diesel block decks that have some corrosion pitting on them. It works well and will not make the gasket hard to remove, quite the contrary, actually. BTW, these diesels have compression ratios of 16:1 and higher.

 

He torqued them at 15 ft lb intervals, no problem there. We had discussed torque etiquette, he's informed. I wasn't worried about this, just the gasket sealer with aluminum heads.
The top end was off because he drove it with the manual switch "off", causing it to overheat. He replaced the heads & gaskets as a precaution. The new heads are slightly used, very clean, like new.

 

I hadn't used Copper Seal before. He swears by it, I do like this product.

 

"Manual switch off"? I'm not familiar with that one. Do you mean fan switch?

 

Yup. There was a manual switch installed, he didn't know about it. He ran it long enough to blow the head gasket.
I plan to replace the thermal switch (unoperational), get the OEM stuff working properly.

Thanks for the help, guys!!