It's official, I am a moron
 

So this afternoon I was replacing my valve cover gasket. anyways, everything goes right until it's time to torque the bolts down. Since I am a moron, or illiterate (I dont know), I mistook the torque specs on the m.net valve cover replacement diy. It said something along the lines of 40-80 inch pounds. For whatever reason, I thought it said foot pounds. I thought that was really high (I think most car lug nuts are torqued at 80) but if m.net said it, it must be right. Anyways, you can pretty much guess what happens.. snap! Luckily only one bolt snapped, and picked up a replacement at the hardware store. I checked all the other bolts and none of them were broken, but since they were shitty chrome bolts, a few of them look a little stretched out.

Has anyone used the r-speed valve cover bolts? I'm also considering just getting a dozen bolts from the hardware store and just polishing them with my dremel so they look nice.

Also, since I overtorqued the bolts, will it mess up my gasket? I didn't notice any leaking around the valve cover but I only ran the car for a little while. Obviously when I get the new bolts I will retorque the cam cover, but this time I will make sure I use inch pounds. I just dont want the gasket to be leaky and have to spend another $30 on a new one. Or, if I replace the bolts, I will have to replace the gasket as well.

cliffnotes: I'm an idiot.

the only time i ever use a torque wrench is doing the clutch.

My valve cover gasket is leaking, as is my CAS. To the point of being annoying to fix. Sigh -_-

^^ What he said, I just tighten it until it's tight.

Only way to know if you screwed up the gasket is to run it and watch closely for leaks- externally as well as down the spark plug wells. Even if you have to replace it, $30 is getting off pretty cheap considering you applied an order of magnitude more torque than specified. Be thankful it wasn't something more critical and expensive. :bigtu:

yeah that's true Scott. I'm happy that even the broken bolt didn't snap and get stuck. I heard the bolt pop, I loosened it and it looked like it twisted, but fortunately didn't snap or anything. When it was in my hands I just twisted and it fell apart lol.

I might just do wrench tight when I replace the bolts. I just dont know if I should replace the gasket while I'm doing it. It's a lot easier than I thought it was, except for this issue I had. The most tedious part is getting the old gasket crap off the head. I might also observe if it leaks over a period of time.

lol @ losers torquing valve covers.

:cry:

Me, neither. After 35 years of wrenching, I'm pretty confident I know when things are tight enough.

if its not a critical part then fuck factory torque specs......use mine! (UUUGGGHHHHHHHHHH 1/4 turn!)

driveshaft bolts to, thats just me!

Clutch bolts, head bolts, main bolts, rod bolts, eccentric bolts, and lugnuts. The rest are generally by feel.

i generally let somebody else fuck with that for me! hehe

I dig the mullet...

I torque everything to German spec.... Gudentight.

When I lived in Germany I knew a girl who was like that...






I just had to.

None of you torque your lugs?

i dont.....although i probably should!

I ended up buying a torque wrench after shearing a bolt off on my other car... the bov/bpv leaked really bad driving to home depot but since then I really don't use it all that much except something like motor mounts or lug nuts

My air impact on setting 3 out of 6 seems to work fine for me. I work up to setting 3 in a cris-cross pattern.

How many put anti-seize on their lug threads?