Torquing the Head bolts...

[KaLo_o]

ok heres my situation...

i just got my head planed, hot tanked, changed a couple valves...seats got cut...anyways my head got rebuilt. So today i slaped a new head gasket on there...its a felpro and its got this white sealer on it. never seen one like this but whatever. now what happened here is that when i put the head back on the block with the gasket there. i did not pay attention and i put the bolts in and just hand tighted it for now so i could toque it later...i did not even tighten then in sequence like i should...starting from the middle....i bolted them from left to right.. not too smart of me but ok. i did not torque them to 72 pounds yet. i am using the bolts that were in there. not sure if they are aftermarket of what not. i have a 7 bolt block. the bolts use a 12mm spline drive kinda bolt. and they are bolts, not studs.

anyways....my question is this....do you guys think i can remove the bolts and retorque everything in sequence? or do you think i should just go ahead and torque them from whatever its sitting at to 72 pounds in sequence?

i am hesitating and removing them because i dont know how good my head gasket will seal after that....i am very broke and i dont want to buy another one just to do this...and i cant buy new bolts either...i know...its kinda bad but thats my situation....

should i jsut remove the bolts and restart? i hand tighten the bolts from left to right..but they are pretty tight for hand tight...i dint check how tight tho...im guessing 50 pounds

 

[fwdmaster]

Nothing to stress over about, if you already hand tighten the head bolts in already just torque them down down to spec, 30, 60, 80

 

[TFFC]

Your fine, you shouldn't have to buy anything. Leave them hand tight and torque in sequence, just like stated above. I know you said your tight on budget, but just wondering is this car your daily driver or just a project. The 7bolt bolts tend to stretch and are not supposed to be reused. You can resuse but not for Major boost. If you are just going to run stock boost you will be fine, but I wouldn't go cranking it up, on those things. If its not your daily driver, I would wait till you get some cash and buy some arp's and do it right. Whats the saying, measure twice cut once, do it right the first time instead of doing it again. Is your call, but my .02cents. Also the torque sequence is
4-8-10-6-2
1-5-9-7-3

 

[USER_22]

You can remove them as long as they didn't stretch in the process of tightening them. Grab a set of APRs next time, so you don't have to worry about all that stretching stuff.