Yes but it'll probably be about as effective as rubbing butter on it. Just use 50s sand paper on a flat piece of wood or have it skimmed and it'll come back looking as shiny as a cd, that applies to both the head and block. You wont damage it unless you rip chunks off it.
made my day that did 
Something that works well is 50's followed by scotch cloth then just a rub-down with a clean rag.
50s = sand paper with 50 pieces of grain per cm, very rough stuff. Where as 2500s wet/dry is very fine.
Owen Snell
Guest
Personally, I wouldn't go near the mating face on a cylinder head with wet and dry or any other abrasive paper, let alone coarse 50 grade.
Carefully scrape off any residual material and then clean the faces with a rag and some brake cleaner, making sure not to get the cleaner down the bores.
If you can't get the material off without using abrasive products, get a specialist to do it for you.
Carefully scrape off any residual material and then clean the faces with a rag and some brake cleaner, making sure not to get the cleaner down the bores.
If you can't get the material off without using abrasive products, get a specialist to do it for you.
Your much more likely to damage either part using a scraper as oppose to abrasive paper. If you have to take the head to an engine specialist because you cant remove the old gasket there is something wrong, either its melted on and the head has been extremely hot or your trying to remove it with a flump.
Owen Snell
Guest
I think we will have to agree to differ on that one. If you scrape correctly you do not remove material and if you use an abrasive, you cannot help but remove material. The OP was talking about sealer residue and carbon, not melted gasket, which should scrape off fine.
Heads are faced to extremely tight tolerances of flatness and finish and 'sanding' is going to ruin that. A wooden block might look flat to you, but it is not a machined tolerance, just guesswork.
Yes, I am qualified in this subject and do know how hard it is to hand finish something flat. The answer is very hard, like you need proper apprentice training and a lot of skill.
It may be that you can get away with doing this and not have problems, but as I said, I would not do it myself.
With all the problems platofan has had i wouldnt even be risking putting an untested head on. This replacment would be being pressure tested and for the sake of an extra £30 i would have it skimmed and acid bathed at the same time thus removing any crap all in one go.
Similar threads
