Proper torque when tightening head bolts

[scott scearce]

Hi all,

I am going to tighten down the head bolts on the 350 cu. inch crate motor I had put into my 1960. Can anyone tell me what are the proper foot-lbs to tighten down these bolts and the approximate order when doing this?

Thank you,
Scott Scearce

[Clem Z.]

Re: Proper torque when tightening head bolts

unless GM said they needed retorqued i would not mess with it. you will have to take off the exhaust manifold to do this

[Bob B.]

Re: Proper torque when tightening head bolts

Scott,

If you just woke up today and thought, "Hmmm, I think I'll tighten my head bolts today," then I agree with Clem. Assuming you have had the heads off, then the torque should be 65 pounds. Not being able to show you a diagram, facing each head from the side of the car, there are three rows of bolts, the top and middle are under the valve cover area. You will want to draw this out. The bottom row is outside. The top four are 13, 5, 2, and 10. The middle five are 17, 9, 1, 6, and 14, and the bottom eight are 16, 12, 8, 4, 3, 7, 11, 15. Try tightening them in this sequence a little at a time and work up to 65 pounds. Don't just tighten the first bolt to 65 and then the second and so on. Once all have been torqued to 65, go over them all again.

Good luck,

Bob

[Frank C.]

Re: Proper torque when tightening head bolts

I agree with all the responses. My method may be a little overkill, but I hand tighten all bolts with a speed wrench as tight as I can get them (maybe 35 or 40 lbs) and start sequence tighting them with the torque wrench in 5 lb increments. SLOW YA but I've never ever had a head bolt problem, remember these bolts stretch during the tightening process...Regards Frank