Olson's Gaskets a question for the membership

[John Washburn CLC 1067 Sadly deceased.]

Folks,
I recently received a call, from a fellow CLC member, Steve Rinaldo of Georgia. He was on the Glidden tour and had been chatting with Sandy Olson of Olson Gaskets out of Washington.

Steve, a few years ago, had a problem with his manifold gasket on his 37 Cadillac and expressed his concern to Sandy about the issue. He was wondering if it would be ok if Sandy Olson gave me a call. I said it would not be a problem.

The problem was the cross over part of the gasket (which goes under the carburetor to heat the gas in cold weather) did not last long before it failed. I have attached a picture of the gasket in question.

Sandy asked if I could poll our members on this issue to see if anyone else might have had this failure. His concern is that if this is a failure point on the gasket he needs to know about it so he can find the cause and fix it.

On a side note; I have used Olson gaskets on all my cars but I use the ones with the cross over under the carburetor blocked off. So far, I have never had a problem.

So if you have this type of problem please respond and I can let Sandy Olson know or have him look at the message board since he is a member of the CLC.

I will also do a write up of this issue in my column sometime in2018.
Thanks in advance for your help.

John Washburn
Elizabeth, Colorado

[Brad Ipsen CLC #737]

I have had this failure twice in the 20,000 miles now on a 40-60S.  Both the intake manifold and the block have been faced.  The first one failed at 11,500 miles. It was a black composite type gasket.  Thinking this was due to not been a copper gasket I switched to copper type.  It failed at 14,300 mile point.  Not even 3000 miles.  Picture attached of this failure.  The material between the copper sheets disintegrated.

I gave up on new gaskets and found an old NOS copper/asbestos gasket.  It is still going strong at the 20,000 mile point but has not yet gone as far as the first one.  My theory is these cars just do not get driven enough so many repo parts do not get tested and therefore no feedback to the manufacturer.  I also had a repo smooth fan belt fail at about 6000 miles. 

[John Washburn CLC 1067 Sadly deceased.]

Brad,

Just curious, since you live in WA, were these Olson's gaskets that failed?

The Johnny

Oh and another subject I just got a 1938, original, Hickley Myers, steering wheel puller for 10 bucks. Not sure how it works but a cool tool...

[russ austin]

63 intake manifold gasket with the exh cross over blocked off; suffered a burn through.

[tripwire]

My 1940 Lasalle had leaking manifold gaskets when I bought it.  On examination I found the gaskets burned similarly but not nearly as completely as those shown in the picture.   My research into this situation led me to believe this is a common problem area with the flatheads and if unchecked it can lead to erosion of the intake and block that will require resurfacing of the block and intake to resolve. 
I haven't driven this car more than a few miles at this point so I'll be curious to see if the replacement gaskets I chose will hold up or burn out again.  For the record, I used Remflex gaskets because I've had good luck with them on other applications. 
It would be great if someone could develop a gasket that will have a good, long life.  Even if it cost a bit more.

[HerbP]

hi John,
As you know, as you were standing there,  I recently replaced the intake and exhaust manifold gaskets on my 40 LaSalle with Olson products.  I'll let you know if they fail, but given the few miles I put on the vehicle annually, it could be a while... 
Cheers,
Herb

[gkhashem]

I am only familiar with my 1966 429 V8. I replaced the tube with a NOS one at 63K. The interior of the damaged tube had a metal spiral inside of the orginal tube.

I added the new tube and put the spiral back in. Maybe not putting in a new tube is the major cause of this? Just a thought.

[Steve Passmore]

Completely different on the flatheads George.