After spending almost 2 weeks trying to clean the last few remaining remnants of my old head gasket (1986 TLR200) and after having tried every chemical I could lay my hands on... all with no luck whatsoever... I finally hit on something that worked.

Actually, it was staring me in the face every time I washed my hands

My so simple solution was to use a pumice block. The kind ladies use to remove callouses from the soles of their feet. Mine happened to have a stiff brush on the top and I bought it not for the pumice but for that brush to clean my finger nails.

Here's what I did. I wet the top of the head with water and then sprinkled baking soda all over. I soaked the pumice block in water and then dipped that in the baking soda.

Using small circular movements I went to work on the gasket material that was baked into the head. It came off in no time and with no hard rubbing. It just wiped off.

I followed that up with a wet cloth rubbed on a bar of Lava soap (also containing pumice) and that was that. Washed it off and oiled up the cylinder and it's now waiting to be honed.

Here is a shot of my cleaned head.

Edited August 2, 201016 yr by scooterspal

What's wrong with using a gasket scraper?

What's wrong with using a gasket scraper?

There was nothing left to scrape. More like a heavy dark brown stain than material you could get a blade under.

Edited August 2, 201016 yr by scooterspal