Can they be reused? I've never heard of them as being torque to yield or anything else that would prevent them from being reused, but just wanted to check.

Thanks.

 

Yes they can.

 

Thx Bundu. Is the funky star head a readily available (i.e at Sears or Ace) socket, or something Rover specific?

 

It is a 12 point bolt, 13mm if I recall correctly.

 

I'd replace them unless you are on a shoe string budget. There isn't much worse than getting everything back together with new gaskets and having a bolt snap on you causing you to remove all previous work to extract a bolt.

Also given the torque sequence on the head bolts (15 ft lb + 90deg + 90 deg) I'd say they are a torque to yield type of design. Given the amount of work involved with a head gasket job, I would not want to re-use them. Let us know how it turns out if you do.

 

He is not talking about the head bolts. The exhaust manifold bolts can get rusty so you may want to replace them if they are really nasty but other than that reusing them is fine.

 

At least if the head snaps off, removal is a cinch. Just slide the spacer off, and take some vice-grips on what's left. One of my bolt heads snapped minutes after changing my O2 sensor. I was just leaning on the fender admiring my work, when "ping" exhaust bolt head pops off. Luckily I had several spares from my old engine.

 

One of mine snapped off when I was completing my headgasket job. PT confirmed that you don't need the same style bolt with the 12-pt head. A regular, hex head, 3/8-2 1/2 bolt will do fine.

 

Thanks for all the responses. Sounds like it's not absolutely required, but not a bad idea either since the head have been known to pop off.

Bryan

 

I removed all mine and reused them about a year ago. All are fine still. Broke one though while removing the bolts. Might as well replace them since you have them off.