Need the picture

 

🤦🏼‍♂️goodness gracious. thank you for letting me know

 

Carefully sanding the block with a sanding block with 240 grit should do it. You need to get the big chunks off with a razor and gasket remover first.

 

You should have only clean metal on the heads and block before installing new gaskets. I have different scrapers depending on the material and situation.

My favorite is a 6" length of an old file with a nice wooden handle. I cut it short and sharpened the end - though not too sharp as I do not want to scratch or gouge what I am scraping.

My next go-to is a piece of acrylic, like plexiglass, about 1/4" thick. I can sharpen this very sharp without fear of scratching aluminum or soft materials. It does need sharpening often but its a quick touch on a disc sander and back to work.

I also have a small curved steel scraper and a razor blade scraper. Used with extreme caution any of these can be used without damaging the block or heads, but with aluminum I mostly use the acrylic scraper. I have even used a wood chisel, but only with extreme caution.

Last I will take a good quality bench stone and some WD 40 and stone to remove any high spots or dirt areas remaining. No need to worry about rust areas inside the water jacket or on the surfaces that are not for sealing.

 

You can also take a whet stone if you have one - that will keep it nice and flat

 

Be cautious with anything sand or grit……. You have exposed pistons with rings that would love to hold the debis and possibly gouge the cyl walls. I use playDoh and make a snake place it circular to cover the ring gaps then use air and a vac to lift and pull out any foreign material from cleaning the surfaces.
Don’t forget if it’s abrasive you are altering the flat surface.

 

I would NEVER use any type of abrasive on the deck. I use the sharp chisel and single sided razor blades only. and have the finish as pictures in post #5

 

I’ve used scotch brite pads, but wouldn’t want to use anything more abrasive than that.

 

Get a razor gasket scraper, this one from advance auto about 8 bux

 

I got one of these from Mr. Gasket but I found it easier to just use the razor blades in my hand.

 

Keep at it you`ll get it as smooth as a babies bum

 

For heavy duty use some of us have a Snap-On gasket scraper they are available used on Ebay.

 

I have one of those and is what I use for the initial heavy stuff,couple different old small files ground down to scrape with in tight places then go to razor blades then scotchbrite pad dampened with mineral spirits.

 

Use a carbide scraper. do not use a roloc.

 

When I was service manager at a GM dealership I had a meeting with all the technicians & informed them I would fire anyone I caught using a Roloc on a engine where the grit could get inside the engine like on heads & intakes.This was after we had to buy a few engines or rebuild them.That grit off a roloc pad will take out the bottom end seen it too many times.Thats not to mention leaving the surface a mess.

 

I recently started using plastic razor blades on aluminum. They work surprisingly well. Amazon has a good selection of single and double edge ones.

Mineral spirits is good, but lacquer thinner is more aggressive.