Hello- i'm getting ready to fire up a rebuilt engine 22r 86 truck, here in the next day or 2 and give it a good run- I have a question on retourquing head bolts. I have seen some recommend after 1 heat cycle, others say 100 miles. i tourqued them to around 63ish ft.lbs, another ? should I do it with the engine warm or cold ?? i'll be checking the valves warm as the FSM states. thanks in advance !

If you can get the search function on this site to work [I can't] Engnbldr had a good post on this a while back. If you search, be sure to spell "retorque" correctly. Basically, on your warmed-up engine, you loosen a head bolt a quarter turn, then retorque to spec. starting in the center and working out in the proper sequence. Do this first, before you do your valve adjustment.

Hi Moto- go to the Toyota Tech Archives section here. In the lower left side, open the viewing option to 'all'; you'll see a couple of Ted's 22Rx articles there for your perusal. Any Q's, post them in this thread.

I usually do my retorques after 500 miles myself. Change the oil and recheck the valve clearances then too.

After a couple failures, I was extra cautious this time. I torqued to 63, went for a cig, retorqued to 63, ran it to operating temp, retorqued to 63, drove 60 miles home, then retorqued that weekend (about 150 miles on it). After a month, it went into storage while I was in Iraq. I pulled it out 14 months later, drove about 1,000 miles, then retorqued to 63 again!

Hopefully it lasts this time, or I have to send the engine to engnbldr for him to cut into little pieces to figure out why I keep blowing fire rings out of the #3 cyl.

thanks for all the great info, and where to look. I have never heard the one on actually loosen the headbolt 1/4 turn. not sure I like that sound of that , but what ever works !!

>>>*The "back off 1/4 turn and retorque in sequence" is a method I learned many years ago building engines for racing.

The reason had more to do with using new fastners, it helps to mate the thread pitch to the bolt hole pitch. I used to do that with connecting rod bolts, too, but now I just measure the bolt stretch on those.

When we can measure the bolt stretch, we know what the actual clamping force is. With any bolt going into a blind hole, there is no way to do that.

Clamping force is extremely important, even more important is uniformity. *How do we get to uniformity when dealing with a fastner going into a blind hole?

The answer is we actually don't, we guess....*LOL**.

By "guess", I mean we convert rotational force into expected clamping force using math. By following a correct sequence of tightening the fastners we can thus get pretty darn close to our best guess.

So when the manual says "58 lbs ft" that is a mathematical suggestion.

Up pops..questions. Is that WITH oil, or dry? Used fastners, or brand new? If new, what is the bolt made of? How do we assure close to zero frictionals at the thread contact point?

I remember wondering about that at a big event down in California, I was looking at the head on my own dragster, there was a neat little "V" shape cut into the head right between #2 and #3.

We built another head in a nice man named Kay Sissel's shop in El Monte, he is the one who showed me the method I still use today. I happened to win the race the next day, head gasket held too. That was 1969, Winternationals at Pomona.

So I have installed new fastners the same way ever since. Is it best? All I can say is it works for me.

Gasket failures always have a cause, and the cause is seldom the gasket itself, that failure is normally a result. It can be everything from varying degrees of clamping force, to a difference in temperature extreme internally. The cooling system may do a fine job of keeping the AVERAGE temperature under control, but still there can be a hot spot under the head deck, the possible reasons are very lengthy...

*Any internal area that gets too warm causes localized expansion, guess what happens?.

So when you are climbing up a mountain with the wife, four kids and a load of Holsteins in the trailor on behind and the head gasket lets go?.

*Something in there got too hot....That can happen while she is idling in the yard to warm her up to go to work, too if one cylinder happens to be way lean for some reason........*EB