a few weeks ago i made a post about my head gasket because i thought i may have blown it. I offered my symptoms i was having and pretty much the response i got was that i had a blown gasket. I figured if i really do have a head gasket then just doing the head studs for now couldn't hurt anything until i had the time to do a HG swap. I get my studs in the mail last week and decide to install them this weekend.

saturday with about 2 hours of work i get them installed and take the car out for a test drive. Voila, no more pushing coolant ou the overflow. So i didn't have a blown HG afterall. Thats some good news to me. Now on to the tricks i learned while doing the install.

First trick, the studs themselves have a socket for an allen wrench. Find a nice long allen wrench and use these to thread the studs into the block. Thread it all the way down until it stops. Wait about 5-10 seconds because if some coolant or oil got down into the hole, the stud will stop before it has actually bottomed out. So if you wait 5-10 seconds the oil will disperse itself around the threads of the stud and you will be able to be assured that it's bottomed out. Turn til it stops wait 5 - 10 seconds, turn again, and repeat t his until it wont turn after waiting.


next trick, it's sort of hard to get the washer and nut on there with just your fingers because the cams get int he way etc... so what i did was i left the allen wrench on the stud, and just threaded the washer throught he allen wrench which acted as a guide for the washer guiding it right down onto the stud without fear of dropping it in a puddle of oil and possibly losing it somewhere. Same goes for the nut itself. However if you put their lubricant onthe nut before you thread it over the allen wrench, you will end up with the lubricant all over your allen wrench, so be warned.

Last trick, on a couple of the studs it is almost impossible to get any part of your hand down far enough to get your fingers on the stud to tighten the nut, so what i did was while the stud was out of th eblock i put the arp lube on the stud and threaded the nut down a few threads, and used the lubricant to stick the washer on the proper side of the nut. That way you have the whole assembly in one piece and the washer wont fall off because the lube is pretty tacky. put your allen wrench on the proper end and stick it in the hole. thread it down and all you have to do is get your socket onthe nut and torque it down.

so those are a couple tips and tricks that might help anyone doing a head stud install in the future. Hopefully it makes things a bit easier.

 

Good post, glad to hear you didn't have to replace the hg.

Don't forget to retighten them down after one heat cycle.

 

I did exactly the same. I used a mag pick up tool to help get the washer to drop down before putting the nut on. I used a small slotted screwdriver to bite one thread before removing the allen wrench. I never dropped anything and it went smooth.

I put the molly lube on both ends of the studs before I installed them.


One last note... The nuts are just a 12 point socket. Not some specialty socket. It will scare you the first time you look at them. LOL