Rust on top of cylinders

I took the head off the other day to chase an oil leak which I thought was coming from the two front studs in the cylinders. When I put it together I ran a copper head gasket with sealant. I always resurface everything on glass. The head and cylinders. What was weird is in the rear of the cylinders I have a slight coating of rust which you can feel with your finger and one of the front studs has rust all over it. The bike has never seen rain and I don't believe I've ever washed it. I don't feel like taking the jugs off to sand the rust so I'm probably just going to cover the Pistons with some plumbers putty and use a sanding block. And of course remove the studs and reinstall them with some poop to prevent any pushrod tunnel leakage. Any thoughts? PS the bike was running fine and not smoking. The more I think about it I had some goofball replace the guides which were standard steel. He jammed some ,001 and ,002 exhaust guides into all four holes. He didn't even put valve stem seals on the intakes. I believe the overly sooty spark plugs and carboned up Pistons were probably due to oil leaking around the guides. I have a newly built head from Carl H ready to go. Thank you in advance for your input. What would Jesus do if he owned a Norton?

Normal atmosphere always has some moisture even Arizona, this will create rust on iron surfaces over time. The top of the barrel needs dressing to make it fully flat but as it stands you still have a seal even if it is narrower than normal. Stick to standard copper head gasket, a composite one would not like the narrow seal band.

I think the front studs if they leaked would have shown oil at the bottom and some oil staining around them. I found that the flame ring gaskets are not big enough to have room for a 40 over + piston. The new Andover top end kits have Annealed copper head gaskets, ( when I brought some last about 5 years ago) The gaskets kits were sold a decent price then. Did you clean the surfaces, they look very dry to me ( no oil).

Carl H said:

I think the front studs if they leaked would have shown oil at the bottom and some oil staining around them. I found that the flame ring gaskets are not big enough to have room for a 40 over + piston. The new Andover top end kits have Annealed copper head gaskets, ( when I brought some last about 5 years ago) The gaskets kits were sold a decent price then. Did you clean the surfaces, they look very dry to me ( no oil).

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I haven't done anything yet Carl except remove the head. I will try and resurface the jugs in place. I don't really want to remove them since the motor was running well. I have a new copper gasket from JS MotorSport including sealant and copper wire to wrap around critical points. I also have a RH4 and a RH10 heads sitting on the shelf. Rebuilt by you a few years ago. I'll use the RH10 since the bike is a 74. I think I'm good to go. Just have to make the time. I guess I'll roll with copper, even though I have a couple flame rings laying around? Good to hear from you Carl! Take care

Think you memtioned this above but be sure to check if the bottom of the two small front stud holes have cracked through into the pushrod tunnels. Best done by shine flashlight into stud hole and watchkng for ligyt in tunnel. Will give oil leak up out the studs and appears on lower front head fins...can fool you into headgasket work.

kommando said:

. Stick to standard copper head gasket, a composite one would not like the narrow seal band.

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Why do you think that?

Sanding -

If I do a high risk job like this I always use a vacuum cleaner hose poked into the " danger zone " to extract as much abrasive as possible.

I use the same method when drilling and tapping ( a kind of calculated risk taking / bodge .. Lol ! )

edit : Have to say with the head off it makes sense to take the jugs off as that won't affect how well the engine runs.

NORTSTER1974 said:

I haven't done anything yet Carl except remove the head. I will try and resurface the jugs in place. I don't really want to remove them since the motor was running well. I have a new copper gasket from JS MotorSport including sealant and copper wire to wrap around critical points. I also have a RH4 and a RH10 heads sitting on the shelf. Rebuilt by you a few years ago. I'll use the RH10 since the bike is a 74. I think I'm good to go. Just have to make the time. I guess I'll roll with copper, even though I have a couple flame rings laying around? Good to hear from you Carl! Take care

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The Flame ring gaskets are good. I apply Wellseal on both sides before installation. I also use Cast Iron buttons which I turned on a lathe and placed sitting over the 4 cap screws going into the barrels to keep the gasket from getting compressed and possibly causing a leak there. I used old cast iron Valve guides as material. Plus 0.001" over the cap screw should be good.
That was a ludwig trick. You still have to recheck your gasket setting torque about 4 times on a cold engine. 0-50-500-1000 miles should do it.
Copper gasket once or twice.