Hello All!

I am in the final stages of completeing hat has been (for me) a long, expensive, and painful rebuild of a Ford 312 ('57) engine. I was performing the final 75 ft-lb torque on the cylinder head when one of the bolts stripped (if you go by the torquing pattern, it would be the #9 bolt). Am I totally screwed now, or can this be repaired? If it can be repaired, can it be repaired if installed in the vehicle?

Thank you all in advance for any help you can offer!

 

Oh man! my worst nightmare!

First of all you said the "BOLT" stripped......I'll assume that you mean the threads in the hole stripped.

You may be able to use a Heli-coil in that hole. I'm not sure if it's possible for a high torque head bolt.

http://www.automedia.com/Thread/Repa...es20021201tr/1

Also be sure that you have not used a "long" head bold where the short one goes.

See --> http://www.ford-y-block.com/assemblyerrors.htm


You may have to drill out the hole and re-tap it.

It may be possible to do it in the vehicle. I haven't tried it with a head bolt.


Good luck.....(I hate when someone says that!)



Rick

 

I'd be willing to bet that someone else here has stripped a Y-block......

I'm just about ready to install my heads....(I may be next!)


By the way, you might also talk to someone at the machine shop you used for your machine work. I'll bet they have lots of experience with stripped head bolts!


Regards,

Rick

 

I did that a looongg time ago and I retapped the block from ?? 7/16 to 1/2 and used a Pontiac head bolt of same length, but had to drill the hole in the head larger also. I think I would now try a helicoil fix.

 

Thanks for the input! I am going to try a helicoil

 

I often retap for a slightly larger metric thread when dealing with many engines or other repairs rather than going way oversize to the next SAE.

 

i rebuilt a 283 for a guy back in 73 and it stripped a hole on both sides no less.we had the block bored so didnt want to give up on it.i did the same thing as merlynr and tapped it to 1/2 inch and drilled out the heads.no problem.anyway its fixable.