Ladies and Gents,
The aim of this post is to collect firm orders for a new, better grey motor cylinder head gasket.
The link below shows some pretty detailed work by one of the FE/FC Holden forum members:
http://forum.fefcholden.club/index.php?topic=26399.0The upshot of it is that in 1963 GMH issued a Service Note AN 1627, which gives a revised head gasket, part number 7424869. The new head gasket results in an increased flow of cooler water to the rear cylinders and valve seats, and is designed for use on vehicles operated at prolonged high speed or under conditions where severe operating temperatures are experienced. The “normal” grey motor gasket has 38 holes punched in it, in addition to the 6 large cylinder bore holes. The 7424869 gasket has 12 of the 38 small holes left blank (unpunched) to change the water flow through the cylinder head. The gasket is used in conjunction with some simple enlarging of the rear water jacket holes in cylinder head and cylinder block. To upgrade your standard grey motor cooling, you remove the cylinder head, do some very simple drilling (very achievable in a back yard), and use the new gasket.
Note that the standard gaskets sold over the counter by Repco, SuperCheap etc are not the better-cooling 7424869. To the best of my knowledge, the 7424869 gasket is not available, other than a few NOS survivors. The work done on the FE/FC forum shows that the 7424869 gasket changes really work.
My intention is to get a run of the 7424869 gaskets made (I want one anyway for my meth-monster grey motor project
). AA Gaskets in Melbourne is willing to make the gaskets up, though we would have to pay for tooling, as well as cover a minimum run of 50 gaskets. The indicative cost of the gaskets will be $70, plus postage. As a sense check, a standard head gasket from eBay is $35-60, depending on quality (the AA Gasket type quality is around the $60 mark).
I'm going to act as the focal point for an order, similar to what I did with the hydramatic service kits. I'll raise a separate post on each of the FX/FJ, FE/FC, FB/EK and EJ/EH forums, calling for nominations on who wants a gasket. I'm not doing FaceBook (me and FaceBook don't talk), but happy if anyone wants to spruik a link to the forums. I'll let the nominations run for two weeks (end of January), and hope we get 50 nominations. I assume some blokes will want two or three, and I'll probably take 5-10 (some for me, and some for the inevitable latecomers
). Provided we get 50, I'll place the order then manage the distribution. Not sure how I'll post these out without them getting bent... need some advice here please. If someone can scan me up a good copy of the GMH Service Bulletin, I'll include a print of that too in each parcel.
If you would like one (or more) of the 7424869 gaskets, please post here, and PM me your name and address. I’m going to take this as a firm commitment on your part to pay $70 plus postage. I’ll collect up the nominations, and see how we go by the end of January.
Cheers,
Harv
