head gasket bolt retourqing

I've never heard of re-torquing a cylinder head before. To me that would be an engineering issue. The o2 sensor on my Tiburon (97') has passed the 190,000 mark. Like any electrical part, you never know when it's going to go. Much depends on how well you take care of your car. What kind of fuel, regular maintainance, oil changes.

...Ron

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All in all the 97' has been a great car. Now it is starting to show that it has some miles on it. It's being taken in to the shop to have its first replacement clutch installed. 190,000+ miles is something I would never have expected out of any car, clutch wise that is.

...Ron

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It's questionable whether you'd prevent any failures by doing this. There is no official recommendation to do so. On the other hand, if it's your own labor and the bolts are readily present under the valve cover, then there's little to lose, either.

I've done it on a few cars in the past, along with valve adjustments and other things that newer engines apparently don't need. However, youre friend's head gasket failure could well have been caused by loose or unevenly torqued head bolts. As long as it's done properly, I don't see how re-torquing the head bolts could cause a problem. Perhaps just checking them once in a (great) while would be enough to ensure that you never have a problem with them loosening.

I'm thinking Ford had a prolem with them stretching 10 or 15 years ago. I could be all wet but I think it was a deal around aluminum heads on cast iron blocks that led to stretching head bolts that eventually failed or let the gasket fail resulting in antifreeze and engine oil getting together. At the time they were reccomending retorquing around 60 or 80,000. Once those ideas get started I think they tend to spread and become one of those hoary old bits of wisdom. ;-)