1400 miles and they blew... AGAIN

[studded]

Haven't been on in awhile but to update my truck the head gaskets blew yesterday bad. Had to pull over instantly and be towed. Was 3/4 throttle let off no problems next light my exhaust is pouring out white smoke, look in the tip and there is coolant and oil, open the hood and it blew coolant everywhere from the passenger head not the bottle cap. This is only 1400 miles since i did studs, gaskets, up pipes and turbo any ideas why it blew like this? bad machine work or torqued down wrong? Im going to have a ford buddy look at it and see whats up ill post up what i find =/

[blackcloud2k]

Had you retorqued the head studs a few times already to make sure that they were in spec? Is this the second time you have done HG's? If so, and everything was torqued to spec, I would say you have a bigger issue somewhere.

[srjd]

Are you supose to re torque after arp studs cause I didn't. Here we go now I'm paranoid again lol

[blowblackorgetback]

Everyone says to do a retourque I bet 15% really do

[drewactual]

If they're done right, there is no worries about retorquein'.. 'sposed to follow pattern, torquing in increments, wait an hour or so, do it again.. wait, and do it again.. three or so cycles and they shouldn't slip.. shouldn't, that is..

The things folks lose traction with on such important items such as torquing head bolts/studs, is they don't do it dry.. just a little oil, grease, anti seize, hell- water, and the torque can't be trusted.. it will toss your torque specs, and will allow the bolts to slip a bit instead of anchor and stretch like they're 'sposed to do..

One good way to know if you've contaminated the threads, is if they bolts/studs lose significant torque after the first time you reach final torquing weight... That's always a biyatch, when you gotta toss never ran gaskets because of a contaminated thread..

I bet this is what happened to you..

[Doss]

Can you tell where the break is? In the middle? on the ends? Between the cylinders? Cylinder edge?

Is it the same place as last time?

You do need to make sure your threads weren't contaminated and that everything was torqued properly. Technique when torquing is important. Not only do you need to torque everything in the correct sequence, you need to make sure you torque them correctly using a nice smooth slow pull.

[srjd]

Hope you can solve the problem with your truck. I had mine done at ford and the tech who did it was very experienced and has done lots of HG jobs on the 6.0 and 6.4. He has used arp lots so I just really hope he did it right and I don't need them re torqued

[rabbitCTSV]

did you check the heads and deck to make sure they were true when you had your heads off for the last HG install?

[blackcloud2k]

I have always retorqued studs 3 times after various mileages, but that has always been on cummins where its an easy job to do, I have never actually put studs in a ford. srjd if you havent had an issue yet, they you will be good. Im interested to hear what they find on the OP's truck.

[04hdfatboy]

Were the heads magnafluxed to make sure the heads werent cracked?