Re-torque head gasket?
bam-bam
Council Member
Growing up building engines with Dad, it was something we always did. Once the engine had warmed up and cooled down a few times, we'd re-torque the head(s) and re-adjust the valves.
Somewhere along the way I started omitting this step. Other wrenches I worked for/with said it was unnecessary, Gasket materials advanced, etc. (And mind that the labor time for the job is the same either way.) I've done scores of engines/heads/gaskets without re-torquing and without issue.
BUT...
I recently swapped a 22RE reman longblock into a Toyota pickup for a customer, and the warranty paper work required a re-torque and valve adjustment. OK, even though the valve cover is a PITA, I'll do it. (Mainly because I don't like the amount of valvetrain noise I'm hearing.) To my surprise, I turned every one of the head bolts 1/4-1/2 turn to achieve the required torque! I even double-checked myself with the other torque wrench to be sure.
Funny enough, the valve lash was in spec...I guess it's just a noisy little bugger. Owner says it's never been so quiet!
So, you may be asking, how does this relate to my Civic? Well, I'm getting to that:
Recently, pebbles' wagon started acting up. She said the temperature gauge was erratic, would stumble at idle, failed emissions testing, steaming from unberhood, CEL sometimes etc.
I was busy with aforementioned job and a couple others, didn't pay enough attention :oops:
By the time I checked it, it was pretty obvious what was wrong: skipping, blowing bubbles in the recovery bottle, steaming exhaust, all the classics. (Oh, and the CEL was code 6, ECT.
)
Now, you may remember that I built this engine over 2 years ago, summer '08. I have a lot of faith in my abilities (it's a sorry dog that won't wag his own tail!) so I'm seriously wondering WTF happened. Engine (D15B2) has around 25K miles on. She must have run it HOT and warped the head! Either way, my fault for not looking at it right off.
So it stayed parked all week while we put a crank in a friend's LS. Only a one-bay garage!. Finally, last night I tore it down,and you guessed it...
All of the head bolts were loose! Not finger-tight, but maybe 25 lb.ft-ish. This was on a Fel-Pro composite gasket. On 'reading' the old gasket, I didn't see any one failure point or track but evidence of compression leakage across a wide area. With my crude home-shop methods, both head and deck seem flat. I'm gonna re-gasket it and see what happens...same kind of gasket :shock:
I've read a lot about folks using the multi-layer steel(MLS) gaskets, for instance one for a D16Z6, and I have one of those here in the wrapper, but I still feel that the 'soft' gasket offers more forgiveness if the two surfaces are not freshly machined/absolutely flat.
Whew. That's a heap o' typing for me...your thoughts?
Somewhere along the way I started omitting this step. Other wrenches I worked for/with said it was unnecessary, Gasket materials advanced, etc. (And mind that the labor time for the job is the same either way.) I've done scores of engines/heads/gaskets without re-torquing and without issue.
BUT...
I recently swapped a 22RE reman longblock into a Toyota pickup for a customer, and the warranty paper work required a re-torque and valve adjustment. OK, even though the valve cover is a PITA, I'll do it. (Mainly because I don't like the amount of valvetrain noise I'm hearing.) To my surprise, I turned every one of the head bolts 1/4-1/2 turn to achieve the required torque! I even double-checked myself with the other torque wrench to be sure.
Funny enough, the valve lash was in spec...I guess it's just a noisy little bugger. Owner says it's never been so quiet!
So, you may be asking, how does this relate to my Civic? Well, I'm getting to that:
Recently, pebbles' wagon started acting up. She said the temperature gauge was erratic, would stumble at idle, failed emissions testing, steaming from unberhood, CEL sometimes etc.
I was busy with aforementioned job and a couple others, didn't pay enough attention :oops:
By the time I checked it, it was pretty obvious what was wrong: skipping, blowing bubbles in the recovery bottle, steaming exhaust, all the classics. (Oh, and the CEL was code 6, ECT.
)Now, you may remember that I built this engine over 2 years ago, summer '08. I have a lot of faith in my abilities (it's a sorry dog that won't wag his own tail!) so I'm seriously wondering WTF happened. Engine (D15B2) has around 25K miles on. She must have run it HOT and warped the head! Either way, my fault for not looking at it right off.
So it stayed parked all week while we put a crank in a friend's LS. Only a one-bay garage!. Finally, last night I tore it down,and you guessed it...
All of the head bolts were loose! Not finger-tight, but maybe 25 lb.ft-ish. This was on a Fel-Pro composite gasket. On 'reading' the old gasket, I didn't see any one failure point or track but evidence of compression leakage across a wide area. With my crude home-shop methods, both head and deck seem flat. I'm gonna re-gasket it and see what happens...same kind of gasket :shock:
I've read a lot about folks using the multi-layer steel(MLS) gaskets, for instance one for a D16Z6, and I have one of those here in the wrapper, but I still feel that the 'soft' gasket offers more forgiveness if the two surfaces are not freshly machined/absolutely flat.
Whew. That's a heap o' typing for me...your thoughts?
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