Head gasket re torquing

Mvvance

Member
I just finished putting a new head gasket on my Farmall A. I torqued it down to 80 foot pounds and will run the engine up to normal temps. I know that I need to re torque it, but do I do it while the engine is hot, or wait until it cools down?
It's my first time doing this so I'm unsure about the proper way to re torque it.

Thanks for any imput.

Mike
 
People will disagree which is ok. I have only done 5 tractors but I do them when cold; Super A, C, Super H, Super M, and 460 do not leak. Be sure you adjust the valve tappets when done. The same question was asked a month? or so again. You will get the same answers.
 
I agree, I would think that you would re torque the head after the engine cools down.
I have an old 1952 P/U truck with a flat head six, and the manual says re torgue after the engine is hot, but I don't know a lot about tractors other than I love them.
Thanks for your reply!
 
It makes little difference. the logic in one way is that the bolt is longer than the block.head is thick and will be loose, so tighten it when the bolt is long and the gasket is heated. Yje other argument is that the heating and cooling will have compressed the gasket and torquing after cooling willsnug yp the difference. Me I just think it is a way to make sure all of them got tightened. Most thhat ai have retorqued show only a few degrees of increased turn of bolt. Jim
 
Thanks for the reply.
I would think that torquing the head while it is hot wouldn't be a good idea, as the head or bolts would not be heated evenly, and that would affect the re torquing values. At least when head and bolts are cool, you start off on an even plaine.
Maybe Farmall has some guidelines in one of their publications that I don't have. All I have is the operators manual.
 
Is there a difference in expansion rate between the steel studs and the cast iron head?

I have had bad luck retorquing M cylinder heads when they are warm. I have stripped quite a few nuts that way.
 
I retorque while hot, but I mostly do Perkins. Some gaskets will not lose fastener tension and some will. If I'm not sure I'll check some outside the valve cover, if no change leave as is. If there's loss of tension I'll recheck all. Some Perkins will lose 30 to 40 ft/lb each, that's why Perkins books call to recheck when hot.
 
right or wrong i have done 3 motors so far, mf 65, case 1570 and ih584 and i have retorqued all 3 heads when they were warm and also reset the valves at the same time. it worked for me but i also am not a expert. if i remember right on the 1570 the case manual said to redo after hot.
hope this helps.
 
(quoted from post at 19:42:40 06/10/15) I never do anymore and have had good luck on, I don't know, maybe 10 tractors and a couple hundred cars

I'm torquing down nuts not bolts, on my Farmall A , so torquing them down cold makes more sense to me, less chance of maybe tripping them. (Just a thought) I guess, you could do them both hot and when the engine has cooled off, to be safe.
Has anyone ever seen anything in a Farmall manual that addresses that question? The fact that Farmall doesn't say, one way or the other (hot versus cold), how the head should be torqued, would indicate that cold would be the way to go.
Does that make sense?
 
Interesting answers to this question. My guess is that few if any new engines leaving the factory in tractors, cars, trucks, etc. have been run to warm-up and then the head bolts re-torqued.
I just rebuilt a New Holland TC33D (3 cyl. Shiparu diesel) this past winter. Nothing in the $350 worth of manuals that I purchased for this tractor mentioned torqueing the head bolts after the first warm-up. Besides to re-torque all the head bolts on this engine would have required some major disassembly, ie ; intake manifold, injectors, valve train etc. Regards; Dan Robertson
 

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