ES2 head gasket

This gasket puzzles me. As I understand it, it was added when rocker oil drain holes were introduced in 1948? to contain the oil on its way down to the crank case. When I ran a ES2 bitza in the 70's I gave up on the one use aluminium gasket as I could never get an oil tight seal if I tried to re use it and as they weren't that easy to find I made a copy in gasket paper, applied green Hermatite, sparingly, to both faces and bolted it all back together. It never blew, was oil tight and was running fine when I sold it. It would scare me lapping the two faces together, you would have to be scrupulously clean. John

My Inter has never had a head gasket and works great so when the gasket on my ES2 went for the second time I did away with it all together. I looked at lapping it in with grinding paste but it was quite a long way out so I figured I'd be there all day. I gave it to a local engineer who machined the two parts to fit, then a quick lap with the paste and it was done! He also counterbored the two oil drain holes in the barrel so a rubber o-ring could be fitted to squash between the surfaces and give a seel. It has gone back together and I've had no problems with it since.

I'd reccomend ringing Mike Pemberton and asking him about it, I'm surehe could do it for you if you can't find someone more local.

Andy