Britbike forum Forums British Motorcycle specific Brands Norton bulletin board Gasket or no gasket...

...that is the question!

I have a 1972 Commando I purchased several years ago and began the teardown process this winter; I've been working on it whenever I'm home. One of the disappointing things about the project was that there was sand-and I mean full to the brim-in the gearbox so everything in there was toast. I purchased another and am almost done rebuilding it. I measured the layshaft endplay yesterday and got .026" without a gasket. I've had good success with Threebond (or Yamabond or Hondabond) in other instances on bare metal surfaces. With the nuts tightened up, there doesn't feel like there is any interference problems.

So what do people here do? Gasket between the covers, or just silicone sealer on the mating surfaces and call it done? Is there a reason to be concerned with not using a gasket?

I have use gaskets for 30+ years, works fine for me. I stay away from silicone.
I ignore all the modern hype/paranoia for shimming the shaft...no jumping out of gear if the parts are not junk.
With gaskets omitted, some out of spec components will cause clashing around kick starter/first gear.

Thanks Dave. Do you install dry gaskets or use some sort of goop with the gaskets?

All I ever use is the loctite/permatex 516 type purple anarobic jelly or bare gasket

corrected: yes 515&518 hard to read they are so dirty

Loctite 515/518 one side, grease the other is my preference. 518 is better on aluminium than 515 which is slower to cure but if 515 is all you have it will work.

Thanks guys. I have used 518 on the cylinder base gaskets on my '73 BMW. I liked the fact it was anaerobic so the small oil passage around one of the cylinder studs was less at risk.