Hi Jock,
Naughty boy! You should know by now to ALWAYS listen to the words of The Master!
When I made the per-emptive strike on my head gasket earlier this year, under the tuition of The Master, we re-used the original bolts. Important points seem to be:
- Thoroughly clean old gasket off the block face and blow/wipe all the gunge out of the bores, coolant and oil galleries.
- Thoroughly clean out the block threaded holes with solvent (contact or carb cleaner spray) and compressed air & clean the bolts well with a wire brush then oil them before putting back in. Make sure the bolts screw in easily and don't 'bottom' on cr*p at the bottom of the holes.
- Perhaps have the head very lightly skimmed to clean-up any gasket/blow-by marks. Some recommend against this but JC does it, so I did too.
- The new gasket will come with the details but from memory, nip up all the bolts to 40 or 60 Nm in the correct order. Then two rounds of 60 degree tightening. Ask JC for his 'secret' method for doing the 2x60 deg steps.
Hope the mods don't see this - but if you're thinking of new injectors while the head's off, you might like to have a squiz in the 'engine parts' ads pages...
Sounds like you guys have had a bit of rain recently? Lots of playing in the mud, I hope? It's bone dry and dusty up this way, so any rain you can spare would be appreciated. Hope your beast is back in action shortly. Say G'day to all from Annette and me.
Ian
Hi Jock,