Just finished tightening the head down and I don't think the head bolts are torqued correctly. Started with 15lbs, then 44lbs then 130*. When going to 130* only bolts 11 and 9 (2nd and 3rd in the tightening sequence) needed the breaker bar with a 3ft extension to complete and they made 4 poping sound along the way. The others I could tighten with just the breaker bar and made no noise, just seemed too easy. All are new and were lightly oiled.Should I tighten the others till they make the same 4 noises or leave well enough alone?

They all held the tq value just fine, and I checked and cleaned the threads in the head an OCD amount to make sure this install went smooth. When taking the head off each H/B popped/creaked three times before breaking free and took a breaker bar and three foot extension with all of my force to remove them.
Installing the bolts only the two mentioned took that much force to reach the 130* mark, the others only took a moderate force and a normal size breaker bar.
I'm almost certain that their is not enough torque on the other bolts, steps 1 and 2 went without incident.





At a loss of what to do next besides call a local Volvo tech Monday and see what he thinks.

 

Sure you didn't have too much oil on them? Oil doesn't compress, if you had excess oil it would cause that issue.

Unless you're a weakling, it shouldn't take a 3' extension to angle tighten a head bolt.

 

I might have put too much oil on the threads, I dipped each one in 10-30w and wiped any dripping excess off with a shop rag. I would say if anything I left a liberal amount of oil on the threads, but by no means were they dripping oil when installed.

So what your saying is that the excess oil might have caused the two tough bolts to be that tough?

During tear down each head bolt required a 3ft extension to get them off and creaked 3 times before being able to be turned freely.

Ill post up a rundown.

 

All right I'm just going to take it step by step and make some notes along the way to see if I cant better understand what happened, feel free to step in.

THE MATERIALS

The Block:
All head bolt hols were 100% clean, blocks deck surface was 100% clean and straight.

Hardware:
All head bolts were new purchased off IPD, head gasket was new purchased from Volvo. I dipped the bolts in 10-30w then wiped the excess off with a shop rag before install.

The Head:
The head was a rebuilt unit from Clearwater Cylinder heads. It looks great however I did find a sizable metal shaving sticking to one of the tappets when taking the cams out. Upon checking the tappets and their seats I discovered that some of the tappet walls on the head had been scored or nicked probably upon removing the springs. Also some of the tappets had some give when pressing them down, like a cushion. Some tappets would rotate freely but have no up and down give, I'm assuming that this is due to the lack of oil pressure and having been sitting on a shelf for a while covered in assembly lube. All in all Im disappointed with the head and not feeling too confident in its ability to last, might return it.

THE PROCEDURE

1.Seating the Head
Had a small problem with getting the head to seat properly due to the two locating pins. I could get one side of the head on and the other would just pop up on the locating dowel. I ended up seating one side and running a head bolt down the closest hole till the head of the bolt just touched the head then applying a moderate pressure to the other side to get it to seat, it worked.

2. Stage 1, tq 15lbs
Started on the exhaust side of the motor and working out in a diagonal, exactly the way Haynes instructs only they start on the intake side (I noticed I had the book the wrong way around too late). No problem, they all torqued just fine and even.

3. Stage 2, tq 44lbs
Again started on exhaust side of motor, all torqued just fine and even. I however did not go back and re torque the bolts after the initial 44lb pass, in retrospect should have re torqued.

4. Stage 3, 130*
Using a cheap plastic angle gauge bough at AutoZone (tested before use, worked just fine) I decided to start on the intake side having just realized I had the Haynes wrong way around.

The first bolt got to 130* without a lot of force, under 80lbs.

The second bolt required my 3ft extension that I used to remove the bolts, and just like upon removal took a lot of force and creaked three times at 115*,120*, and 125*. Each creek was like hitting a wall, the bolt would not turn easy and require more force to break through that wall producing a creek noise.

The third bolt acted just like the first, no extension needed and has to be under 80lbs of force with no hard spots along the way to 130*

The forth bolt was just like the second, felt like the correct amount of force. AKA a poop ton.

The fifth through twelfth bolts all took a moderate force to complete stage 3, did not need a 3ft extension and have to be under 80lbs of force on them. They also made no creaking noise or have any hard spots on the way to 130*

WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED??

1. The bolts are fine and properly torqued. (No F-in way, too inconsistent in tightening forces and not enough force on most of them.)

2. I broke the two bolts that made creaking noises. (Not likely, they required the same force needed to remove them to install them and made the same noises in both cases. I think the creek is the bolt actually stretching to the yield point.)

3. The angle gauge and torque wrench are not accurate.(The wrench is new and one of Craftsmen's more expensive units, the angle gauge is cheap plastic from autozone but upon testing seemed to work just fine even through stage 3 tightening.)

4. I applied too much oil on the threads causing the difficult two to be so difficult. (I did oil them liberally but they were not dripping oil, just enough to fill in the threads of the bolt)

5.Upon finishing stage 2 (44lbs) I should have re torqued the bolts, and started from the intake side. (I think this is probably what happened, by starting on the exhaust side and having the locating pins be on the intake side they could have been jamming resulting in false tq readings. This combined with the fact the pins were initially giving me a problem seating and not re torquing the bolts to make sure 44lbs was reached probably screwed me.)

WHAT TO DO NEXT??

1. Call Lee Volvo and talk to a Volvo tech to get his opinion. Regardless get new head gasket and head bolts and do it again, making sure to re torque the bolts at stage 1 and stage 2.

2. Further inspection of the head is needed, call Clearwater and see why its nicked and if I cant get a replacement.

CLIFF NOTES:
Setbacks suck.

 

Did you check the bolt holes for oil before assembly? There's usually some in there after disassembly.

Maybe Tech will chime in, I'm sure he's done plenty of these.

 

Yea the bolt hols were 100% clean and undamaged.

I have this posted on swedespeed with a lot more information and pics.

http://forums.swedespeed.com/zerothread?id=135870

Any help would be greatly appreciated.