Head Bolt Retorque with head studs

[01txdmax]

This may well be beating a dead horse, but here goes....

I have some oil oozing from the rear of my head gaskets. About 20k miles ago I did gaskets and studs, so it seems time to retorque based on some threads I've read.

I have the 6.9 torque sequence from here: http://www.thedieselstop.com/forums/f31/head-bolt-sequence-296293/

and the ARP torque value from here: http://arpinstructions.com/instructions/150-4069.pdf

After reading about how easy it can be to warp/crack heads by performing this procedure incorrectly, I pose the following questions:

Do I take the pressure off of all the studs, then retorque?

or

Retorque to a value greater than the 80 ft/lb (I've read 100-130) following the pattern but not loosening anything?

Thanks!

 

[riotwarrior]

IMHO,

New gasket time...sorry

JM2CW

But...get that engine steam cleaned and make sure it is HG leaking first!!!!

 

[icanfixall]

Well who told you that 80 lbs was the torque. I'm no expert but I think 80 lbs was a little low on the 6.9. Once oil has made its way under the gasket no matter what gasket it is. Its going to wick out no matter what till you replace the gasket again. You can try torquing to a higher torque but it may not work. I would not loosen the studs but try tightening them by 10 or 15 lbs. As posted its best to make sure this leak is sure from the head gaskets and not from the valve covers or something else. Clean it odd and look again.

 

[IDIBRONCO]

Do clean it up to make sure where the oil is coming from. Remember, there is no oil pressure at the head gaskets, just returning oil from the rocker arms/ push rods. The pressurized oil goes through the push rods.

 

[jaluhn83]

I'd bet it's your valve cover gaskets. Head gasket is almost never going to leak oil on these - much more likely to leak coolant if it does.

Shouldn't really need to torque the gaskets. If you do, I wouldn't go much above stock. The proper way to retorque is to loosen the bolt/nut then retighten to the desired value - not just try to tighten it down more without loosening first. You can also just tighten them but this is not going to give you a never accurate value. If you do just one at a time you shouldn't cause any gasket problems. If you loosened more than one at a time then yes you would potentially have gasket issues.

Remember that the thread on the studs is much finer than the thread on the stock bolts - what this means is that you'll get more clamping force for the same torque - so there's no need for a very high torque despite having a stronger 'bolt'.

 

[01txdmax]

icanfixall: The 80 ft/lbs I reference is the torque value specified with the ARP head studs that I installed, 5 ft/lbs higher than the Ford diagram that Chuckster posted in the link in the OP. Do you have a value that you recommend?

Thanks all, I'll do some cleaning and check it again.

 

[icanfixall]

The 6.9 stud torque I have to refer to others that know more than me. On my 7.3 I used 110 lbs on the ARP studs plus I used the ARP molly lube of all the friction areas of the studs and washers and the heads. If I used 30 wt oil for thread lube the torque would have been 130 lbs.. Not fun at all but shows how great their molly lube is... I torqued mine down and loosened them 5 times like ARP instructed me to do.. The 5 torque was for breaking down the thread tension so I got a fantastic torque. I had another head gasket and head and block to do this on. It sure was a hell of a lot of work too. 5 times 17 time 2 is a lot of torque. When I started this I ruined 3 studs. The nuts gauled to the studs. ARP is about 90 miles from my home so I drove there and talked to their engineers bout that. No problem. they gave me replacements. I asked about some highr torque studs and they had a 320,000 lbs stud but. If you dropped it they would break. If the oils from your hand got on them they would fail too. Not a very good stud for us.. I had a set of the first studs from DPS in Ill. They were 270,000 psi studs. I found 3 broken studs one day so thats why I went to ARP.