I put a new head gasket on my 41 Chevy sedan. I didn’t even think about dowel pins nor seen any. The gasket aligned just fine with the head bolts. Do I need to take it off and find some pins? Will it affect anything? Thanks
If the head gasket is a copper jacketed type, you'll meed to spray the gasket with CopperKote sealer, or silver- aluminum spray paint, both sides, then install with the paint tacky. If it's a composition type, I highly recommend finger-dabbing some #2 Permatex around the water jacket and push rod openings. Got snakebit once with a gasket that leaked oil around a opening - before I had a chance to fire the engine!
I bought two long bolts of the correct thread, cut the heads off, and ground slots in the ends so they could be turned back out with a screwdriver after using them for guides to slide the head down onto the block.
A 5.5mm drill bit is .2165 diameter. Zoro sells them for about $6. You can chop saw the unfluted shank to make several pins. Then put them in a hand drill and rotate them while lightly touching a fine belt sander to put a small bevel on each end.