Replacing gaskets


 
J

John Caserta

New member
Hello,
Years ago I installed a gasket set on my WSM 18" using Lavalock Red (RTV650). My top gasket, between the middle section and lid, has gotten squished and soaked with fat from briskets, and now doesn't really seal well. I've tried cleaning it, but it is soaked. I have left over gasket material and Lavalock glue, so was going to replace it, but the old glue is crazy hard to remove.

Any tricks or suggestions on removing the old gasket and glue ?

Thanks
 
John Caserta said:
Hello,
Years ago I installed a gasket set on my WSM 18" using Lavalock Red (RTV650). My top gasket, between the middle section and lid, has gotten squished and soaked with fat from briskets, and now doesn't really seal well. I've tried cleaning it, but it is soaked. I have left over gasket material and Lavalock glue, so was going to replace it, but the old glue is crazy hard to remove.

Any tricks or suggestions on removing the old gasket and glue ?

Thanks
Click to expand...
The only way is with a new razor blade scraper. Be careful not to cut yourself in the process. As a retired mechanic it was a constant love hate relationship. Any curved surface adds challenges. A wire brush will remove any leftover RTV.
 
John Caserta said:
Hello,
Years ago I installed a gasket set on my WSM 18" using Lavalock Red (RTV650). My top gasket, between the middle section and lid, has gotten squished and soaked with fat from briskets, and now doesn't really seal well. I've tried cleaning it, but it is soaked. I have left over gasket material and Lavalock glue, so was going to replace it, but the old glue is crazy hard to remove.

Any tricks or suggestions on removing the old gasket and glue ?

Thanks
Click to expand...
Gasket on WSM? Why?? And wouldn't a soft squishy gasket "seal" better than not?
 
JohnTak said:
The only way is with a new razor blade scraper. Be careful not to cut yourself in the process. As a retired mechanic it was a constant love hate relationship. Any curved surface adds challenges. A wire brush will remove any leftover RTV.
Click to expand...
Thanks...uggg. Not looking forward to this lol.
 
Follow up, in case anyone needs to know this in the future. I scraped the big chunks off with a small drywall knife. This still left a lot. Then I put a brass wire brush on my drill, and very very easily took the rest off. Done in about 5-10min, very easy. The WSM has such a hard ceramic coat on it, that the brass brushes left nary a scratch. I wouldn't try this on a different smoker, especially a green egg type thing.
 
I did this pretty recently and it seems like most of it came off with razor scraper and just a ton of elbow grease. I went with the self adhesive this go around. We'll see if it holds up as well as the RTV. I must have used some kind of solvent. Might have just been rubbing alcohol.
 
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