Evening collective.

Two questions: I have a standard head gasket for a crossflow. I've cracked the head off and found +030 pistons. Will the gasket be ok? I assume they're oversized slightly.

Secondly, what's the best home method for cleaning the block. It's very greasy and some of the waterways are fairly furry.

Thanks
Jon

For the block I used cilit bang, brake cleaner, soap and water, elbow grease and a wire cup in Mr angry.. then finished it of with two coats of black hammerite..

If you've got it stripped some degreaser and a power wash?

If the bore of the gasket doesn't overhang the cylinder bore it will be absolutely fine

First off the earlier advise on cleaning is for the block not the block/head face, just needed to make that clear.
All standard original equipment gaskets are designed to fit the largest standard oversize bore and the available oversized Pistons, so you should be ok.
Measure the old gasket and you will get an idea of the max bore size it will be ok with.

i recently had some problems with headgaskets failure.

i bought some well known brands, as well as some unknown ebay ones. i also bought NOS from brands which do not exist anymore, as well as brand new ones.

they all came with different bore sizes. (by the way: the cehaper ones where more "universal" than the quality ones)

some would only fit the original bore, some could even cope with a +.060 overbore.

this said, most imortant is to get the head properly fitted, i mean well aligned to the block and during fitting of the head the gasket should not move.

why i´m telling this?

originally ford fitted the engines with locating dowels, those often have been thrown away during the life of the engine when people re-frubished the engiens, changed headgaskets etc. if you are now using a standard gasket with a rebored engine and you are not 101% sure about the headgasket staying in place during assembly it might happen that on 1 cylinder the fire-ring of the gasket may stick slightly inside the combustion area.