Copper-asbestos exhaust gasket trick

Hello all,

I experienced a rash of 'the copper-asbestos exhaust pipe gasket disappearing trick' some time back; living in the New World means I can't just pop over to the nearest Norton specialists and pick up a few for spares. On a hunch, I took a length of the soft 1/8" O.D. copper tubing one sees in the local plumbing supplies shop, bent it into a circle of the same diameter as the spare exhaust gasket I had in stock and carefully butted the ends together, I did not solder, braze or attempt to fill the tiny gap as I had figured on the carbon build up to close it for me, this was placed in the usual location, betwixt cylinder head and exhaust pipe, after a few good heaves on the spanner, I drilled a small hole in one of the rose nut fins and stretched a tension spring up to hook over one of the rocker box hold down bolts to have it pull in a clockwise manner, keeping the offending nut tight, I have not had to fool with it involuntarily since. I can't say it is the copper tubing that did the trick or the tensioner spring, perhaps it was both. I do believe that the copper tubing has an advantage over the rolled copper stuffed with asbestos gasket that can simply blow itself out the back end of the bike, the copper tubing does crush to a degree but it hasn't disappeared on me yet and it has been several years now.

Albert.