Well I got my parts. At a glance, they look good. Unfortunately, he didn't have any documentation to offer me.

I'm hoping to start assembly tomorrow.

 

No head gaskets in my Cometic top end kit? WTF!!!

It appears that there's some other gasket missing too, but I don't know what it is.

And it looks like I got two different cam cover gaskets.

This sucks a$$!!!!

Anyone else have this happen?

 

Extra gaskets is normal....missing gaskets I don't think is right.

That sucks to be put behind like that.

Good luck.

 

I don't know what to do.

1. Wait till Monday to call Zanotti...then if they decide to do something for me, wait for it to ship to me?

2. Call the stealers around Minneapolis that are open on Sundays and hope one has .030" head gaskets for me.

3. Just buy whatever thickness gasket the dealer has in stock.

I wish I would've gone through the gasket set when I got it a week ago. Lesson learned I guess.

 

general rule of thumb on ring end gap, is .004" for every inch of piston Diameter. ie. 3 1/2" pistons = .014" ringend gap. normally if you have to file them, its only the top and middle rings, the oil control rings are usually 20-25 thou.

Piston to cylinder clearance on HD pistons in a typical street engine is .003" and on freshly bored cyls thereshould beNO taper and NO out of round.

 

If I remember right I've got .015" or .016" end gap on the compression rings. The oil rings were substansially more...got it documented at home.

I called Zanotti about the missing head gaskets from the Cometic top end kit this morning. The guy said he'd make a couple calls on my behalf. A few hours later he returned my call. He spent close to two hours tracking down a couple gaskets for me getting the run-a-round from both Drag and Cometic. He finally got to a gal at Cometic that said they didn't have any head gaskets in stock but they could get their manufacturer to drop ship a set to me. I should see them Wednesday or Thursday of this week!

Thanks to the guy at Zanotti for helping me out!!!

 

The box that the pistons came in should have the gap setting for the rings if it was bought as a set .If not the bags the rings came in will have them ..Mark..

 

The pouch that the rings came in says to reference the manual for the proper end gap. The manual says the ring gap in the book is for stock rings only. They must mean stock as in the proper size rings for that HD piston / bore size. If you use non-stock rings for a stock piston (or non-stock rings designed for a +.010 piston) then you don't use the "stock" ring gap in the manual? Does that make sense to anyone else?

Anyway...I finally got my missing head gaskets this morning. Thanks to Tim over at Zanotti's for helping me out. Turns out that Zanotti didn't have them in stock, their supplier Drag Specialties didn't have them in stock, Cometic didn't have them in stock, and of course their manufacturer didn't have them in stock either. Rather suspicious. Anyway...they were apparently made mid last week and drop-shipped from Cometic last Thursday.

Thanks again to Tim and his pleading to Cometic convincing them to drop-ship directly to mesaving me another week.

With any luck, I'll have my Dyna on the road in a couple days.[sm=americanasmiley.gif]