shmucklebuckle

After disassembly of my head, I now know why my headgasket "blew." I use quotation marks because the gasket itself did not fail. Upon removal of the head, I found several of the head stud nuts to be loose. LOOSE! Why did this happen? I know I used a torque wrench to tighen them to spec, so how could this be? Well, when a torque wrench is put away set to a particular torque setting, it ruins the accuracy of the torque wrench (click-type). This I already know. Now, I also know my torque wrench has been put away without resetting to 0 (or lowest shown torque value), for long periods of time. What I didn't know was how sensative the wrench was to this storage mistake. So, for the Love of God, set your torque wrenches to the lowest reading shown, or else face re-doing a headgasket.

The good news is, this is the 3rd headgasket job I've done in the last 3 months (read: I'm getting quick at it), so after 1.5 hrs, I've got the head out New head and gasket set from Legoland951 are set to go in tomorrow after work. More on that later.

Mighty Shilling

Hmmm... good to know... that could be why my torque wrench is sleeping with the fishes... (it's dead...)

shmucklebuckle

I might also add that if you know your wrench has been put away at any value above "0" (or lowest shown setting), send it off to a instrument shop to be re-calibrated.

Manning

Never use a click style torque wrench for torquing down heads.

Yabo

damnit.. now where can i bring my torque wrench to be calibrated? does sears or someone do that?

mavfan

glad to hear you found out what the problem with your car was man. you seemed UBER pissed at it in one of your last threads! GJ

shmucklebuckle

GREAT. At least 2 out of 10 threads for the head studs in my block are stripped. F!#king great. I didn't do anything wrong! WTF?!! I guess I have to find a heli-coil deal for those now. Un f^&king believable. And now I have to buy a beam type wrench? What a huge pain in the *** this car is.

Yabo

are you sure you didn't overtorque and stripped the threads, thus making the bolts loose?

quinnfiske

I have a Sears Craftsman click type. Sears can recalibrate it. I had mine done before an engine rebuild and it was fairly cheap and took a few weeks. I always keep it at zero when not in use.

shmucklebuckle

I guess I must have, I don't know how else they would strip. The out-of-spec wrench at home must be over torquing stuff. /sigh

Manning

Like I just wrote in the other torque wrench thread, proper hand position among other things is very important when using a torque wrench. Combine bad hand position or wrenching angle with a wrench that is out of spec and you are asking for trouble

apierce918

i hope my connecting rods dont wiggle loose

Legoland951

Trevor, I have a snap on indicator dial torque wrench. It takes at least 100 ft lb of torque to strip the head studs. They are not easy to remove at all so you may need specialty tools to get them out. Also, don't you have someone at work with a good torque wrench? You can borrow mine if you can't find one.

brad-cam

The torque specs for 944 head stud nuts are specified by angle, not torque value, so I just use a breaker bar (after setting each one to the low value of 15 ft-lbs of course). The procedure is CYL-03 on Clark's Garage.

Peckster

Incorrect torque would not cause nuts to be loose. Sounds like you have other problems, maybe the threads are pulling out of the head and you didn't notice when you were torquing? But not zeroing your torque wrench was not your problem.