Afternoon guys, gals, I am an old retired guy.




My wife has had her 2004 monte carlo ss for 10 years, purchased new at the dealership.

She just had the dreaded uim failure, put in the dorman kit, then found a head leak.

I have the thing torn down, and have found white pellet looking things in clumps of semi solid oil. Now this thing has never had leak sealer put into it and the antifreeze has been changed once. I blew the stuff out with compressed air.

I got some felpro headbolts, but am waffling the line on putting thread sealer on them.

The headbolt on the rear middle cylinder at the right was rusted and had water on it.

Anyone used threadlocker? The stuff on the felpro bolts is not near as thick as oem.

And the bolts are the same length as the ones taken out, any Idea how much they stretch???????

 

Install the head bolts exactly as the manufacturer of them says to. It is common to use threadlocker or silicone on the bolts. Sometimes specs will be revised so check the packaging for possible changes. I can't tell you the exact spec that the bolt will stretch, but most will 'stretch to spec'. Just make sure to follow the correct sequence when you tighten them and take them down in steps. As far as the white pellets, speculation I the beginning formation of the creamy crud that forms in the crankcase when oil and water/antifreeze mix.

 

Thanks for the reply, I already installed the front head with blue 242,if it fails I will let you know. The bolts are a pretty loose fit, there is not corrosion except for one bolt on the back cylinder. If the bolt hole has a bottom in it, I will not use the blue 242 there. If they do in fact stretch, it is not enough to tell with the naked eyeball. All the bolts on the front head have open bottoms so i believe it is going to be okay. Picked up a new torque wrench and torque angle indicator. Man, those suckers are tight.

 

Figured out a way to get those ten year old exhaust studs out of the head, heat them up and shoot them with some oil, let it cool and soak with WD40, run and exhaust nut to the bottom of the stud at the boss, pinch a smaller outside diameter nut between the one against the boss with another exhaust nut and keep tightening until the stud will back out without the three nuts moving.

 

Looks like those bolts stretch .018 to .022.