Will never know if this could have helped somebody out. No fix posted to the original problem. Waste

 

Such is the plight of every. Car. Forum. User. Ever.

 

I'm not sure what the question is. I'd say there's a 99% likelihood that the left head gasket is leaking.

Mine started about 3 years ago. I added Barr's Leaks Tablets, and the leak has been gone for a couple of years now. I'm all but certain that these leaks are caused by the high engine temps and $hitty tighten-to-yield head bolts that gradually stretch as the engine heats (expands) and cools (contracts).

EDIT: I now see you have brought back 20 old threads about leaks. I'm not sure what you expected, but I'll be surprised if you get any more info than you currently have.

If you have a leak, post about it and we'll try to help.

 

With engines that have the original HGs, does anyone think there is any benefit to checking the head bolts and nipping as necessary? Has anyone tried it and had the gasket/s live much longer?

Or do the TTY bolts not allow that?

I agree with the heat/cool processes over time things must be effectively loosening off. If the HG is kept nipped very tight, I can see it has less space to go, i.e. Fail.

In the real world, this may be utter garbage. But in my head, it makes sense.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by nipping the head bolts.

But I suspect that when most people tear into the engine enough to do anything to the head bolts, they figure they might are well swap the gaskets and go for the full monty while they are in there.

 

What's the point of having the "search" function, or Google then? It's such a waste of time just trying to find the general idea behind a fault because I (you, we, they) run into a dead-damn-wall on almost every thread! It would be nice if a bunch of bologna posts self-destructed and ceased to exist, thereby making better use of search time instead of asking more questions, where there are 3 or 4 people with different ideas or opinions, the OP says OK (I will follow these leads) then....that's it. We never know what happened or how the problem was fixed. Senseless. Inconsiderate.

 

Yeah, made perfect sense to me, but only me.

I mean to re-torque the bolts. From the factory to 100,000 miles. I would be interested in the torque values of the bolts after all that time.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torq...yield_fastener This points out that the bolt has passed the elastic limit, and is acting 'plastically'. This doesn't sound ideal for something that is contracting and expanding.

I'm guessing TTY bolts can't be re-tightened? If it's reached its plastic limit, the next stage is to break, without applying any more force. If I understand it correctly.

But, Doc, you made perfect sense. If you've stripped the engine to the point of getting to the bolt heads, you may as well remove them, swap gaskets and carry on.

I'm still intruiged how long a factory gasket would last though, with the correct force on the head. I'm at 100+k on factory gaskets. Not prepared to swap bolts only though...

 

Lots and lots of people come back and report how they got on. This forum is better for that than others.

If I read a thread where there isn't a conclusion, then I tend to assume that the thing the OP went off to try worked. Not always the case I'm sure.

 

and there are those people who think that there question is so much more important that everyone else.
they will do stupid sh*t like bring up every old post and remark about it, just so that they can get attention, and push other real post down the line.
those people just don't get answers

 

Yeah, you'd have to replace the TTY bolts and re-"torque" to verify that they are the problem, and if it didn't work you'd have to buy new bolts when you swap the HG.

That said, during head disassembly people find head bolts that are extremely loose. I'd be tempted to check the head bolts and if they are loose, just crank them down til it feels right. What's the worst that can happen?