I just pulled the head off of my 258 yesterday evening to get a broke head bolt out of the block, lucked out, it came out without having to drill and use an ease-out, but I heard or read awhile back that on the 258 when you do a head set that you need to replace the entire set of head bolts. I ain't never done that on anything else I've ever rebuilt or replaced the head gasket on. By the way, the broke bolt was at a waterport location. And what may have caused the bolt to break after it was torqed down and checked again after the first hundred or so miles? Stress or just a weak bolt? It was approx. 2 years ago when I replaced the cam and lifters and timing chain and gears. Any opinions? Thanks.
Head Bolts?
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I would say what caused it to break would be somebody who re-used it...did I say that?
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No seriously, you should NEVER re-use head bolts, I know that there will be a ton of posts now from people who will say "I've been doing that for 350 years and never broken a bolt." Well I suppose that's getting lucky....You are *always* supposed to use a new set of head bolts when you pull the head....
In reply to:
No seriously, you should NEVER re-use head bolts,
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Well that is correct,,, to some degree!!!!
As a heavy line mechanic for several dealerships through out the 70's/80's, (Ford,Pontiac,AMC/Jeep,Chevy) The only dealership that required you to use new bolts on a head pull was Ford. That was only on the bolts that torqued higher than 65psi. On the most part it is a good idea to change them after they are 5 years old or torqued to a high rate. Keep in mind the stress on the bolt head and threads are the issue to include the elasticity of the bolt body. On the other hand if you stretch the bolt threads that means more than likely the block threads are stretched too.![]()
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