Thermostat housing

[chrisheile]

Is it ok to use permatex for this or should I get some thin gasket material and make one?

[RonT]

"Blue" RTV has been used many many times, for this, clean the surfaces, apply a small bead, smooth with finger & bolt it down. When I have a gasket I still use a SMALL amount of the blue RTV on both side of the gasket.

[Joel]

Should or could you use the Blue RTV for the impellor housing as well???

[RonT]

Now your getting into a more critical area. many of the pumps we have used have a thin paper gasket behind the front cover on the crank driven pumps. If you tear the paper gasket & don't have a new one your choice is simple- very thin RTV or no skiing today or perhaps the week.....I will always choose the latter. I did have a customer tell me at a boat show in San Antonio one evening that his impeller tore up in the middle of a big weekend when he had several guests on the boat. Unfortunately where they skiied was quite away from the dock & he didn't want to fry his engine. He did have a replacement onboard & a screwdriver but tore the heck out of the paper gasket and the replacement didn't have one either. Being determined he asked everyone in the boat to search for anything that could be used as a paper gasket. One of the young ladies on board found a new "in the wrapper" rubber in the glove box & joked maybe this will work! He claimed that he took out the old impeller, slid the new one in with the help of some binding soap, carefully stretched the rubber over the flat cover, pressed it to the housing, pushed the 4 screws through, tightened it down & started the engine. It worked! I assume the impeller tore out the center section & left the perimeter as a gasket...who knew...probably still in there...wonder what the next guy who had to change it thought...I guess what can be learned from this is real skiers would sacrafice a "special" time with his girl to ski on smooth water.