Reply To: spaghetti seal AND Permatex 51813?

[Don]

Well, the 847 is surely a powerful/strong sealer, but is definitely tough to work with and dries quickly. I wish it came in smaller more controllable tubes.
Theoretically, you are only using the 847 in conjunction with the spaghetti seal to just glue it in place. The spaghetti seal is doing all the sealing, the 847 just holds the spaghetti seal in place. So, I would use as little of the 847 as possible, just enough to secure the spaghetti seal in place. Excess 847 will dry quickly and could shim the crankcase halves apart slightly.
I would not use the gel seal in conjunction with the 847/spaghetti seal. Chances are good that the 847 will get mixed with the gel seal rendering it useless anyway. Once again, the 847 dries quickly, so you don’t want to spend time applying gel seal giving the 847 time to set up before the crankcase halves are assembled and torqued.
The gel seal is nice because it doesn’t not dry/set up until the halves are assembled. But, the downside of the gel seal is the prep. It is tough to tell if you have removed all the old gel seal, because of its light color, the manual recommends using a black light to make sure all of the old gel seal is removed. The crankcase halves must be perfectly clean and dry before applying gel seal, the slightest bit of oily film will render it useless.
So, the benefit of the 847 is that it is forgiving, and will dry/seal no matter what, its downside is its quick dry/set up time.
The gel seal does not dry until the halves are assembled, so you have all the time you need to apply it. It’s downside is the prep, which must be pretty much perfect, or the get seal is useless.
Seeing a crankcase leak after starting a rebuilt engine is a downer for sure, so the importance of sealing the crankcase halves properly can not be over emphasized…