Have a thread in "the good stuff" on a new rebuild but just ran into a hurdle that would be potentially more appropriate here.
I'm looking to check piston to valve clearance with clay but don't have my old head gasket to reuse for the measurements and don't want to risk using my new one. I used Hamilton cams calculator and with my current set up I have .049 clearance. A gasket from what I gather is. 061 so the valves will hit the piston without a a gasket in place.
Bought a cheap $40 felpro head gasket from O'Reilly's this morning and was shocked to find that the gaskets were almost identical. The only difference being there Cummins gasket had an imprinted Parts number and the felpro and the same place was covered with the red stuff and a few areas has extra red stuff on both gaskets? WTF!? $90 difference!
https://photos.app.goo.gl/KS7Y27dxvF1j3L1d2
https://photos.app.goo.gl/6ZQEdCAV6ecuFL3U2
https://photos.app.goo.gl/KjHL08wqCSFq11tP2