usualy as the name implys you use those things to aid in making a tight gasket to prevent leaks and all but some times people will use too much of the stuff to make a gasket or stick the parts together too soon, in this case the extra or too soft gasket will squeez to the outside and you can easly scrap it out and all is fine.
this is the problem... you thought that the gasket only squeezed to the outside but in fact it has squeezed to the inside as well and the passage of water, coolant or oil will drag the extra parts till they split of the main gasket and start to wonder arround your engine.
this happened to me while fixing the radiator leak... the IN hose was leaking from the radiator port and i used some to cure the leak... also i used it to fix the leaking thermostate housing and it worked fine, yesterday the radiator's right reservoir was cracked byond repar so i had to replace it... as the guy popped off the old reservoir i saw build ups of gasket maker at the bottom of the radiator blocking at least 3 or 4 passages... i never had heat problems so apparently the block was not that sevear.
if the gasket maker used was a bit more it could have totally blocked the radiator and caused engine overheat issues and would have had to strip the radiator to clean it, this is not even the worse part.
my mechanic told me that some fool used too much gasket maker to redo the engine oil pan gasket (to save the cost of buying new pan gasket) and used too much gasket maker... the extra gasket was cought by the oil pump, clogged the oil lines and the engine failed due to lack of oil.
in the end i say the product is a wonderful thing to use as long as you use it right... if used wrongly it could do so much damage so be careful guys when you do use those things.
MMamdouh
