Hi all, I am getting ready to replace my head gaskets on my 1996 Disco LE and have been doing a lot of research on the procedure. I have the RAVE manual downloaded but I am having trouble figuring out what the torque spec.


I thought I saw in the RAVE manual 25Nm in one place and 38Nm in another place, but when doing google searches on it I am also seeing 51Nm.


Can someone give me a definitive answer on this?


Also, do I lightly coat the bolts with oil before torqueing them down - like it says to do with the head bolts?


Thanks!


Paul

 

Ram Housing bolt torque is 26 Nm >> Intake Manifold is 38 Nm Have a look

 

fyi.....if you need to convert to Ft/lbs Nm x .74 = ft/lbs

 

Thank you guys!

 

I think I'm going to go and recheck the torque on the intake manifold. After doing my head gaskets, I am running a little rough at stop signs. I've read that this can be caused by leaky vacuum lines or maybe the intake manifold bolts aren't tight enough.


Whoever did the job last had put silicon sealer on the four corners of the intake manifold gasket around the air passages. I wonder if they were having similar issues with how it runs.


Any input on this?

 

the rtv on the 4 corners is supposed to keep oil from leaking out of the manifold/ valley pan (intake) gasket area where the heads and everything meet...
but you sure enough can have an air leak from loose manifold bolts and poor hose connections

 

I did put RTV on the ends of the valley gasket seals and made sure to push them into the slots where they seat.


The hoses are the locking ones where you have to push the two tabs in on the connectors. I gave them a quick tug after putting them back on and the would not pull back off the ports.


I may just take the intake plenum and coil pack back off and give each of the bolts another quick tweak. If that doesn't do the job, I might have to pull the intake manifold off and put some silicon sealer around the ports of the heads/intake manifold.


The car ran perfectly before doing the head gasket job - it was just noisy.


It seems like it will stumble under load once in a while too. very strange.

 

The devil is always in the details.... I found that if I didn't lay the intake on with the valley pan gasket and finger tighten it's bolts to both heads to align all three that there was a chance that the intake could leak due to one or both heads being just a touch out of square with it. There is wiggle room on the dowels and it's just enough to cause this kind of problem. I only removed the intake for the final 90* turn of the head bolts. I did this twice on my engine and became expert at it with the other 30+ head gasket replacement jobs afterwards. It doesn't say squat in the manual about this and it should. Its luck if you get it right the first shot and some folks do. The head bolts are single use TTY but, I've reused them on my motor because they where fairly new and not too many heat cycles. So you can loosen them and square everything like I mentioned. Sucks, I know, been there. Don't glob a bunch of RTV on and expect that to fix it, it won't last.

 

hmmm, I certainly don't want to pull the heads off again if I don't have to. I might try pulling the intake manifold off again and try some oil/gas/heat resistant sealant on each of the ports before yanking the heads off.


Wouldn't you need new head gaskets then too if you pulled the heads off in addition to possibly new bolts? I could feel the bolts stretch when I gave the final 90 degree turn (they just seemed to turn and it didn't get any harder to push on the breaker bar). I don't think I'd feel too good about reusing the bolts if I did that.