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Head Retorque?

2623 Views 4 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  gregaust
Any need to retorque the heads after warm up using 1018 gaskets with iron heads?
The reason I'm asking is because I assembled the motor with regular blue Felpro gaskets and after 400 miles, I was doing something else under the truck and spotted some coolant seepage between the head and block. I had cleaned the block threads prior to assembly and lightly oiled the bolts before installing. I checked the torque on the bolts today prior to disassembly and they seemed ok. After I got the head off I noticed that the water was seeping from the water jacket to the edge of the head on the head side of the gasket. There was no indication of seepage on the block side of the gasket. Today, I also installed a bolt in the block with the head off, bottomed the bolt in the thread bore and measured the distance from the block deck to the bottom of the bolt head and compared that to the head to make sure my bolts weren't stretched and bottoming in the bore before the head was tight. I have .130 + the thickness of the compressed head gasket, so I don't have bolts bottoming out.
Do I need to retorque?
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It wont hurt to re-torque them. Lots of gaskets say there is no re-torque needed, but I go ahead and do it anyway for assurance and just to eliminate any possiblity of leaks.
Sounds to me like the heads need to be surfaced..........
Rob
Sounds to me like the heads need to be surfaced..........
Rob
I forgot to add, this is a fresh build. Heads were new from Scotty. Block had fresh zero deck.
Make sure to run fresh water in motor for little while before switching to coolant. Coolant tends to track.
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