Oops - loosened head bolts instead of valve cover bolts

schspeedster · Post by **schspeedster** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 2:10 am

I win the Darwin award for stupidity - am used to GM motors with bolts around the valve covers, didnt notice the real valve cover bolts, and loosened the head bolts on my 2.2 N/A. No wonder the bolts were so tight. Since the head wasn't actually removed, do I now have to loosen all the head bolts and re-torque step-by-step like in the Haynes manual?

entirelyturbo · Post by **entirelyturbo** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 2:27 am

I'm inclined to say not only that, but now you need new head bolts.

I've never R&R'ed Subaru heads before though, so I'm not the ultimate authority.

Binford · Post by **Binford** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 2:40 am

How many did you loosen? Most of the head bolts are under the valve cover, so losening the ones that are exposed really shouldn't do any harm as long as you torque 'em back down. I think you'll be fine. If you're turboed and have your boost turned up, that may be different. My .02.

555BCTurbo · Post by **555BCTurbo** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 2:52 am

He said its NA

schspeedster · Post by **schspeedster** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 2:55 am

Binford wrote:How many did you loosen? Most of the head bolts are under the valve cover, so losening the ones that are exposed really shouldn't do any harm as long as you torque 'em back down. I think you'll be fine. If you're turboed and have your boost turned up, that may be different. My .02.

Only the 6 on each side, around the outside of the cover. This is a N/A motor.

sammydafish · Post by **sammydafish** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 3:13 am

Binford wrote:How many did you loosen? Most of the head bolts are under the valve cover, so losening the ones that are exposed really shouldn't do any harm as long as you torque 'em back down. I think you'll be fine. If you're turboed and have your boost turned up, that may be different. My .02.

huh? all 6 head bolts are exterior to the valve cover.

if you lostened them all the way and the head moved, you're scrwed, you need to replace the gasket. If the head didn;t move, you might get away with torquing them back down. Make sure you do it in the right order and the right procedure (there's a lot of back and forth on subaru heads) This isn't the right way to do it, but you might be ok. worst comes to worst, you need to do a HG job, so no matter what you're no worse off for trying.

206er · Post by **206er** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 3:47 am

you can definitely reuse subaru head bolts.
how much did you loosen them by? what I would do is retorque them and check the compression, drive it around check again, and if no problems call it good. otherwise it will be pretty obvious what to do.

Binford · Post by **Binford** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 3:56 am

There are no bolts under the cover? I've never had the valve covers off an EJ before, I'm sorry. I did a quick scan of my engine and thought most of the bolts would be under the cover. Assumptions made as ass of me today.

skid542 · Post by **skid542** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 4:17 am

Just for reference - http://www.thawa.net/gallery/EJ22ESwap/valvencam , that's a EJ22E (non turbo) with the valve cover off.

I've never taken the heads off but from listening to others on the boards, you can reuse the head bolts once, maybe twice. So yeah, torque them back and hope your gasket stayed seated.

schspeedster · Post by **schspeedster** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 6:01 am

sammydafish wrote:
Binford wrote:How many did you loosen? Most of the head bolts are under the valve cover, so losening the ones that are exposed really shouldn't do any harm as long as you torque 'em back down. I think you'll be fine. If you're turboed and have your boost turned up, that may be different. My .02.
huh? all 6 head bolts are exterior to the valve cover.

if you lostened them all the way and the head moved, you're scrwed, you need to replace the gasket. If the head didn;t move, you might get away with torquing them back down. Make sure you do it in the right order and the right procedure (there's a lot of back and forth on subaru heads) This isn't the right way to do it, but you might be ok. worst comes to worst, you need to do a HG job, so no matter what you're no worse off for trying.

Didn't loosen all 6, so if I do it by the book (loosening all 6) that increases chances of the head moving. Don't think it moved at all just have to get the bolts back to original torque.

sammydafish · Post by **sammydafish** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 3:35 pm

yeah, I would retorque the ones you lostened in the order they need to be torqued in, just skip the ones you didn't losen.... good luck

Matt Monson · Post by **Matt Monson** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 4:58 pm

IMO,
This is just a recipe for future disaster. Got get new head gaskets, reuse the head bolts and remember the cardinal rule of "do it right, once"

Also, I would be very wary of just retorquing the loosened bolts and leaving the others tight. The reason there is that multi-step process is two fold. It is partially to compress the gasket and partially to provide even clamping. If you do it unevenly (with two already all the way tight) I would be worried about warping the heads. These heads warp more easily than most people realize...

sammydafish · Post by **sammydafish** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 3:52 pm

I really wouldn't worry about warping the heads. These are some pretty small heads, not an inline 6. The torque sequence is for proper gasket compression and because of the bolt design. Loosening and retightening bolts is a common procedure on any engine with really long head bolts. I assume it's to ensure the turning of the bolt is applied to the torque on the threads, not lost in torsional flex.

have you tried to just torque them down again yet? Did your head gasket survive?

schspeedster · Post by **schspeedster** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 7:30 pm

I have left it sit in the garage, picking up some other parts from the dealer today, will loosen them all & retorque per Haynes manual later today.

schspeedster · Post by **schspeedster** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 12:55 pm

Retorqued all 6 on one side so far. Did some research, and found retorquing heads on the old Subaru EA-series, VW, and other motors is recommended procedure. That would make sense to maintain the clamping force, since bolts stretch and gaskets squish. Maybe heads on EJ-series motors could use retorquing periodically too?

hackish · Post by **hackish** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 2:54 pm

Before a million internet parrots tell you to change the gasket realise this... If it's an MLS gasket it's not uncommon to re-use the gasket anyway. It's very common to double torque head bolts on performance engines anyway. I've done it dozens of times with 0 issues. I've never re-used a gasket but know dozens of people who have with 0 problems.

The main concern I would have is warping the head because of the uneven clamp load. Chances are very good that you can just torque things down and be just fine.

On one of my engines I once forgot the dowels. I just removed the head, installed them, re-torqued everything and proceeded to run 15 PSI of boost all day long.

-Michael

Matt Monson · Post by **Matt Monson** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 4:35 pm

hackish wrote:Before a million internet parrots tell you to change the gasket realise this... If it's an MLS gasket it's not uncommon to re-use the gasket anyway. It's very common to double torque head bolts on performance engines anyway. I've done it dozens of times with 0 issues. I've never re-used a gasket but know dozens of people who have with 0 problems.

The main concern I would have is warping the head because of the uneven clamp load. Chances are very good that you can just torque things down and be just fine.

On one of my engines I once forgot the dowels. I just removed the head, installed them, re-torqued everything and proceeded to run 15 PSI of boost all day long.

-Michael

I take it you have never actually removed an EJ22 head gasket? There is no way in hell that gasket could ever be reused. They tear up and get shredded to pieces upon removal. I have never worked on any other engine that requires so much head and block clean up before reassembly with new head gaskets.

I too have retorqued the HG's on other Subaru motors. When we did the high compression frankensubby, the car's owner installed the metal STi gasket backwards and that messed up some coolant passage alignment. I just had him remove it and start over from the beginning. And when I was playing with Hondas, we used to reuse copper head gaskets all the time...

dzx · Post by **dzx** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 6:39 pm

hmm i remember installing the headgasket backwards....ended up with a ton of oil all over the place.

hackish · Post by **hackish** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:24 pm

Matt Monson wrote:
I take it you have never actually removed an EJ22 head gasket? There is no way in hell that gasket could ever be reused. They tear up and get shredded to pieces upon removal. I have never worked on any other engine that requires so much head and block clean up before reassembly with new head gaskets.

As I have said I've never personally re-used a gasket on a customer's engine. I've removed the gaskets on EJ22T, EJ20K and EJ25. I've never seen one shred upon removal. From what I remember they were all MLS as well.

-Michael

Matt Monson · Post by **Matt Monson** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:51 pm

hackish wrote:
Matt Monson wrote:
I take it you have never actually removed an EJ22 head gasket? There is no way in hell that gasket could ever be reused. They tear up and get shredded to pieces upon removal. I have never worked on any other engine that requires so much head and block clean up before reassembly with new head gaskets.
As I have said I've never personally re-used a gasket on a customer's engine. I've removed the gaskets on EJ22T, EJ20K and EJ25. I've never seen one shred upon removal. From what I remember they were all MLS as well.

-Michael

That's what I am getting at. I have never seen an Ej22 or Ej20G from any of the '89-94 cars have an MLS gasket. Modern EJ20, Ej22 and Ej25's yes, but the early cars all have a composite gasket of some sort. See pics of Ej22T below:

You can see all the crap the gasket left behind on the block. The gasket is still attached to the head in pic #2...

evolutionmovement · Post by **evolutionmovement** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 12:00 am

Marine manifold gaskets make old Subaru HGs a dream.

I wouldn't worry about the HGs here as he didn't separate the heads.

sammydafish · Post by **sammydafish** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 8:30 pm

werd... you can reuse an MLS gasket... unfortunatly, the EJ22 doesn't come with one

206er · Post by **206er** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 8:41 pm

so MLS is the jargon for the all metal gaskets that are several layers of thin sheetmetal? IIRC they have a little tab sticking out that gets bent in when you tighten them, will this prevent reuse as it will be flattened?

sammydafish · Post by **sammydafish** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 9:51 pm

MLS = Multi Layered Steel

schspeedster · Post by **schspeedster** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 4:26 am

All back together seems OK on test drive.

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Oops - loosened head bolts instead of valve cover bolts

Oops - loosened head bolts instead of valve cover bolts