John, and Keith---I have never blown a head gasket, and I've stopped
retorquing the head on my engine. The head has been off maybe a half
dozen times since I started doing my own work over the last 15 years. I
follow the torquing proceedure, as written in the Bentley.
I did used to check all the head nuts after head removal, then only
those visable without removing the valve cover. When setting my torque
wrench to 80lb. to see if I could get any movement before a click was
heard I never could.
One other way to tell if the gasket could or should be further
compressed after some run time, would be by checking valve lash before
and after any attempted retorque. I would imagine if the gasket
compressed further, the lash would close up by .001 or more.
I attribute this "no-need" to improvements in the gasket manufacturing.
The way the later block is recessed at the cylinder bores has to help in
preventing blown gaskets.
Dick
'73
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