As long as your head bolts are in good shape, and they are not the torque to yield bolts you can re-use them. Clean the threads in the block and on the bolts and clean the underside of the bolt head. When using antiseize, never over torque the bolts - use the lowest maximum torque recommended. The amount of clamping force is greater, at the same torque setting with antiseize than it would be for oiled threads.
The torque to yeild bolts are easy to Id. They're threaded all the way to the bolt head. And if you have the older style bolts and aren't going to reuse these, don't toss the longer ones, these make excellant guide pins for transmissions. Just cut the heads off immediately under the head, chamfer & smooth the cut ends. Four of these (two per side) screwed into the block's bell housing holes make engine installs easy as pie. Lower the motor, line up the pins in the bellhousing holes and shove the engine onto the transmission. These also work with manual transmission alignments to the bell housing.
baddad, i hear you on the FE felpros. I think im going to switch cause im tired of re tourqing my manifold constantly just to have lesser leaks instead of full on leaks my poor truck
Mark the position of the hood hinges with a magic marker before removing the bolts. This makes lining up the hood easier when reinstalling. I use 1011-2 on my 347 with 12.5 compression. Never had any problems and never retorqued them.
got the 9333-pt1's and copper coat aresol paint. Now I need someone to hold my hand while I do this...lol...
I dunno - I've put on head gaskets before, but this is different. It's a 331 stroker w/ aluminum heads, all built by someone else, and I'm just freaked out about screwing something up. It's not that I really need help, more than I'd like someone with experience to supervise the process. I've even thought of pulling the entire engine, and putting it on a stand so I can really check it out: heads, block, pull the oil pan, etc...???
honestly it should be the same as any other head gasket job. just make sure the surfaces are clean and free of oil during reassembly. chase the threads in the block so you will have clean threads for the head bolts. sence you think or do have blown head gaskests you should have the heads checked for warpage.
I've put gaskets on everything from a Nash Metropolitan to a Cat 3612. It doesn't matter what engine or what mods the headgasket gets torqued down the same way all the rest do.
Clean, clean, clean and proper torque spec and you're golden! This may have been covered but are you using studs or bolts? If bolts, unless they're ARP, should be replaced. Most factory head bolts are TTY (torque to yeild) and should only be used once. Good luck man!
Well come on up to Dallas - we'll make a full day of it! Edit: Sorry guys - I started a new thread specifically on the question of the copper-coating but I should have put it on this thread - just dummied out...
