I read here: http://www.dansmc.com/gaskets.htm about the idea of using wheel grease on either mating surface when installing new gaskets. You'll see his primary argument being that it starts the natural gasket swelling process and aids in assembly. I have never heard that idea.

Anyone had any experience with that?

 

I heard Bill Burke say the exact same thing just 2 days ago in reference to the paper gaskets on manual locking hubs. I would ONLY do that on a plain paper gasket that doesn't seal in any kind of pressure. Generally, if you have a gasket you don't need to put anything on it to make it seal.

 

I've used a variety of methods and products and nothing..... with the the biggest failure rate going with, nothing. lol

typically i use grey RTV to saturate the the paper gasket, never had a failure in any situation using this technique. They do sell a product specifically for applying to paper gaskets tho (name escapes me..) by saturate i dont mean apply a bead and a crap ton of RTV, I lay the gasket on a clean surface and apply rtv and smear it on, very light coat, just enough to saturate the material, flip it repeat. then apply it to the mating surface and run a clean finger over every square millimeter makes a nice uniform seal, then install whatever it is youre sealing.

this also makes it really easy to keep a gasket where it needs to stay as the RTV tacks it in place. I know some folks will disagree with this and i think everyones pretty much got their own way of doing things but over the many years and trial n error "lets see how this works" scenarios.. this has just worked the greatest for me

 

I've done the grease trick a lot working in a shop. However it was only for intake plenum gaskets that were paper. Never use it on area's that are near coolant. Just throttle body gaskets and upper plenum gaskets if they are paper.

 

I've use this technique to get timing cover gaskets to stay in place. Just a light coating on one side and gray RTV on the other sealing surface. Has been holding strong for going on 4 years...