Hi all. I’m in a shitty situation here trying to get my car out of my aunts garage, as there’s suddenly been some tension with her daughters husband who apparently doesn’t want me here anymore working on my car. Working nervously and I don’t know if I ****ed up.

I was tightening my new cylinder head with cylinder head bolts in three stages and I stopped at stage two (40 ft lbs, ARP) bc the socket was slipping. It slipped when trying to do 65 ft lbs so I went out and got a 12 point. When I tried to start again that first bolt I was trying to torque to stage 3 just felt weird. Maybe bc it was sitting for an hour. I untightened them bc I thought the torque might be wonky so I hand tightened them and started the sequence again. The head hasn’t moved or I didn’t move anything at all. It just sat. I restarted the process and just finished three stage torque. Is there any reason why anything would be wrong with the head gasket?

 

Please specify what year and model you have. According to my Chiltons manual, the says 30 ft lbs (40 Nm) plus 1/4 turn (90 degrees). If you’re really putting 65ft lbs, that’s way too much and you will destroy the gasket, possibly warp the head and strip the block threads.

Take what I say w a grain of salt bc I’ve only had my Mini for 3 months but I’m in the middle of a HG replacement so the details are fresh in my mind.

see what you can find on YouTube

 

>Aunt's daughter's husband (your 'cousin in law?') wants the car out of dear Auntie's garage because reasons

Unless the CIL holds deed to the house (and not your aunt) seems like this one requires the purpose-built GFYSAH tool.

But you knew that already. And now the bad news:

R50:




R53:




Where did you get the 65 ft-lbs figure?

 

The Head Gasket itself "should" be ok since it was never heat cycled and seemed you didn't even get full torque on it....
Unless, something wasn't seated or aligned properly.

​​​​​​Was there possibly fluid in the bolt holes?

Seems a little weird, depending on how much farther you've gotten, it may almost be worth pulling the head and inspecting the gasket, it should still be fine to use, again if it hasn't been heat cycled.

I've also never encountered a correctly sized socket slipping on an ARP bolt, esp at that little torque, did you chase the threads with one of the old Head Bolts?

ARP's aren't torque-to-yield and will have different torque specs, plus be reusable.



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Thank you for the replies!

 

ARP fasteners! I mentioned it in parenthesis.

 

fluid or crap in stud holes. blow them out and chase them then blow again.