Water Tee gasket -- glue required??

[Tango]

When putting my cooling system back together, I have a new gasket for the water tee / union. Are these normally applied dry or with some kind of sealant? The PO's mechanic re-installed it (upside down) as far as I can see with no gasket at all, just a red rubbery sealant.

Tim

[bajacalal]

I use a product called Hylomar Universal Blue for this sort of thing, it's a viscous blue, non-hardening liquid, Amazon.com has it. It's kind of hard to find, I guess it was developed by Rolls-Royce or something. I think it does a very good job at sealing things that aren't perfectly smooth anymore.

I also used a carburetor mounting gasket for early aircooled VWs with a single barrel carb for my water tee. It fit just fine, sealed fine and could be found locally for about a dollar.

[SLOSpider]

You want some kind of sealant on there, RTV, or the liquid brush on kind just about anything is ok. If you use RTV just use a very THIN coast as not to get goobs of extra in your radiator and cooling system.

[katsi]

I used a thin layer of of that red hi-temp sylicone gasket stuff. I buy it at the 99 cent store. They have red, black and blue. I also used it to seal up the metal patches in my floor boards so no water will get in. Works great and it's really in-expensive.

[Tango]

I'll see if I can get some RTV type material on the way home tonight. I want to get it running so I can take it to work on Thursday. Supposed to be a gorgeous day and Friday is a holiday up here in the Great White North.

T

[kilrwail]

Tim - CTC has RTV sealant - I think it's Permatex and it's fine.