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Cat 20 head gasket question

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1 month 1 week ago #259715 by Mike Meyer
Hello Grant, Thanks for reaching out, I'm in Australia, so unfortunately a long way from you, I have managed to source some good parts for this tractor from Droptube up in Oregon, which are going into a 40 foot container at Auburn right now, that is being shipped to Oz, so hopefully I'll have most of the bits I'll need, but I will keep you in mind.
All the best
Mike

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1 month 1 week ago - 1 month 1 week ago #259716 by Mike Meyer
I was scratching around in one of my parts boxes and found these 2 new head gaskets that I'd forgotten I had, I can't remember where they came from, but I suspect they came with a bunch of Cat reproduction parts I'd bought from John Matta down in L.A., back around 2013. 

They are cut from a modern gasket material with a solid metal core, and a graphite like coating on both sides, and hand written on both is Cat 20, you can see there is only one water port per cylinder. There is no fire ring, so I'm unsure if they are suitable, what do you experts think, are these new gasket materials good enough to be a head gasket in a low compression gas Cat without a fire ring?

I was going to get new copper head gaskets made here, last week I got quoted around $US40 each to have some hand made here in Australia by a local gasket maker, which I thought was a good price, Olsens quoted me $US135 for Cat 20 head gaskets.
Thanks
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Last edit: 1 month 1 week ago by Mike Meyer.

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1 month 6 days ago #259784 by ChrisE
Replied by ChrisE on topic Cat 20 head gasket question
If your deck is perfectly flat and your heads are flat there is no reason they shouldn’t work. Worst case is you have to pull the head off and change it later. You have them might as well use them. If it was a diesel without the fire ring then I wouldn’t use them. Good luck with it. Keep the post going with your progress.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Mike Meyer

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1 month 6 days ago #259789 by naylorbros
  I took a couple of pictures of a couple Twenty head gaskets that I have had for a while. One original and one that I bought from Olsen's Gaskets many years ago. I believe that, like the instruction manual says, only one hole is needed. My reasoning is that pumped water, like electricity, will take the path of least resistance. If the head gasket has holes for all of the core passages open, the two inside jugs would be over-cooled, and the front and rear jugs would be under-cooled. I was going to take a picture of an R3 head gasket, but they are at the bottom of a box, and I did not want to dig them out.
     If I remember, The Thirty has all of the core passages open in the head gasket, but the passage between the water manifold and the cylinder jug serves the same purpose of trying to insure equal water distribution between the jugs.
     I have had a set of the non fire ringed head gaskets in my Thirty for several years now and have not had a problem with them yet.  I need to get it in the shop and fix the master clutch so that I can play with it again.
Thanks
Ken
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The following user(s) said Thank You: side-seat, Mike Meyer

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1 month 6 days ago #259796 by Mike Meyer
Thanks ChrisE and naylorbros for the opinions on the head gaskets, I recently tested the compression on a Cat 22 project tractor I have here and found the compression was pretty even on all 4 cylinders, right around 54 PSI, and only improved 1-2 PSI when I added some oil to the cylinders, so I'll assume the Cat 20 compression will be similar.
Regards
Mike

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