am i fucked?!

[TwoJ's]

You absolutely should have at the very least replaced the belt. You don't know when that thing was changed and it is cheap insurance. And what kind of leveler test did you do to test the head?

[tjmonsen5]

Jeez. you really need to take everyones advice and listen to us. These heads need to be torqued down perfectly, in the right order, with the correct bolts. Im glad your car isnt mixing oil and coolant anymore, but i have a feeling that it will soon. While you had the head off, you should have replaced the water pump, and ESPECIALLY the timing belt. That timing belt is a ticking time bomb. It is very cheap, less than 20 dollars. If your belt snaps, then the valves will hit the pistons and you will need a new head.
22, 90, 90 is VERY tight. The first 90 isnt too bad, but that 2nd 90 will have your back hurting pretty bad once you are done! Did you at least replace the cam seal and rocker shaft plugs?

[ben312]

It was toqured in the right order? I know I should have done the belt in not knowing when it was done last but it was very fresh and I know that the first and last owners took great care of the car aka car got more maintance then needed. But like stated this was a very strict budget. Ill take lunch for the week over an extra set of head bolts or gas for my DD over that timing belt. This is a project and is getting a swap once I gather the money. So even if my shit goes to hell in 1000 miles it will already be out of the car. I do realize I may have cut some coners but I am propbly the poorest member of r3v and I can't afford to do everything at once. And I will soon need to DD this car ( watch out that 4 miles a day will be real hard on it) its life > perfect car at this point.

[arch4ngel]

In the manual it says to never ever reuse a timing belt after loosening the tensioner.
I put off replacing the timing belt for a couple weeks after my gf got her vert, it cost about 700 to get a used head and all the parts.
More than 30 times more expensive than a new belt :)

[884door]

When I removed the head bolts from my car my torque wrench was maxed out (90ft. lb) before they even budged. God that was a workout.

[Mossman]

When I removed the head bolts from my car my torque wrench was maxed out (90ft. lb) before they even budged. God that was a workout.

Let me add to the lessons to be learned in this thread by telling you that this is a terrible idea. Torque wrenches are for torquing, not loosening. I've never done this myself so I can't testify whether it really screws em up or not, but way overtorquing the wrench then having the bolt break free suddenly and jar the mechanism, then doing it again 13 more times sounds like bad news. If it was a nice wrench I'd tell you to get it recalibrated, but at least if you're doing a torque crucial job borrow a buddies that hasn't been abused and make sure they read close. Also, you should always store torque wrenches relaxed, ie. set to 0 or below not set to any torque reading.

And finally if you disbelieve this, the reason they have the reverse switchy thing on torque wrenches are incase you have to torque a left hand thread fastener.

[rThor432]

Ill take lunch for the week over an extra set of head bolts or gas for my DD over that timing belt.

I understand where you are coming from, but think about the worst-case-scenario (which is entirely possible in this situation). If that timing belt goes out, that $20 for a new belt will look like loose change in comparison to a head job.. and the head job will keep your car off the road for a long time, which sucks if it's your only transportation.

[TwoJ's]

sigh...


you will learn eventually.

[ben312]

It only has to run for the weekend. I have another car I'm trying to sell, and when I do I'll have the money to do timing and water pump.

[ben312]

And even if my motor did blow up I'm not worried about how much it costs. I've got a bud I can buy an e36 off for 2k for the whole car, so that can serve as a DD and swap part car.

[RickSloan]

where do you have 2K all of a sudden? you have done nothing but talk about how poor you are this whole thread?

[ben312]

It only has to run for the weekend. I have another car I'm trying to sell, and when I do I'll have the money to do timing and water pump.

Ummmmm.....Selling a car?????

[Swart_Kar]

I store my torque wrench at exactly 0. It is a good idea to torque something at a low setting a few times to make sure that everything is lubed before you use it where it matters.

[884door]

Let me add to the lessons to be learned in this thread by telling you that this is a terrible idea. Torque wrenches are for torquing, not loosening. I've never done this myself so I can't testify whether it really screws em up or not, but way overtorquing the wrench then having the bolt break free suddenly and jar the mechanism, then doing it again 13 more times sounds like bad news. If it was a nice wrench I'd tell you to get it recalibrated, but at least if you're doing a torque crucial job borrow a buddies that hasn't been abused and make sure they read close. Also, you should always store torque wrenches relaxed, ie. set to 0 or below not set to any torque reading.

And finally if you disbelieve this, the reason they have the reverse switchy thing on torque wrenches are incase you have to torque a left hand thread fastener.

Yea it was just to get an idea of how tight they were, then i used a massively long breaker bar to loosen them, the torque wrench was not long enough. I dont think it would affect it's accuracy at all because head bolts don't "Break" loose, they just budge a little at a time (at least in my experience). Mine is one of the old style wrenches like so: http://priuschat.com/shop/images/torque.jpg
I could see a newer style "clicky" wrench being a lot more fragile to this.


Sorry to bump the old thread btw. lol

[Adrian_Visser]

Nice thread bump for an old school deflecting bar torque wrench. Shit it must be accurate to less than what 50%?