Took me 6 months to realize I was torqueing head bolts in the wrong order

I was reading a manual for a different engine and noticed the sequence looked way different than what I had been doing. Turns out I had been going clockwise around the pattern instead of starting from the center and working out. Has anyone else missed something obvious in a manual for way too long?

2 comments

2 Comments

craig.nathan22d ago

Read a thread on a machining forum where a guy ran a whole V8 for two years with a warped head from wrong bolt order. Ran rough the whole time and he just thought it was normal.

emmajackson22d ago

Six months? I honestly don't know how I would have handled finding that out. Did you actually have the engine running with the bolts torqued in the wrong pattern? I can't imagine the stress on the block if you fired it up. Makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it.