Guinnless

A mate of mine needed his headgasket doing. I wish I'd have checked the state of the bolts before we'd removed the head! I never bothered because they were bought from somewhere that you wouldn't expect to sell shit.

I'd oiled them up and then spotted that the splines are not centred to the shank of the bolt. This one was 0.7 mm off centre. Some were better but at least two were like this.
There are no markings at all on the bolts.


We'll be speaking to them on Monday to see what they have to say. And hopefully they can redeem themselves.

I don't believe they post on here either in case anybody is wondering.

So I now need some proper quality bolts.

LHD220Turbo

iTrader: (4)

Genuine Ford head bolts will be marked with either KXA1000 for 4wd or KX1000 for 2wd. There are alot of cheap copies out there, so be very careful. Who did you buy from? Problem is Ford dont make these bolts anymore!

Also worth mentioning is some bolts are described as 10.9 or 12.9. This indicates the the tensile strength of the bolt. 10.9 will take a min of 1000 Newton/mm2 force before it snaps, 12.9 is 1200 Newton/mm2) you want 12.9, the others will probably snap on trying to torque them down

Those in the pic look nasty & cheap

Guinnless

Thanks for the reply LHD.

I didn't want to state the supplier until they'd been spoken to in case there had been a genuine cock-up.
GGR supplied these and have insisted that they are fine and suitable up to 350bhp. Some replacement Victor Reinz bolts have been ordered. I've used before these and they were had manufacturers markings on and were visibly much better quality.

If we could get the original Ford ones we would do. I'd be reluctant to use 12.9s TBH as they are not stretch bolts and would put the same stresses on the block as ARP studs.

tony66

iTrader: (7)

unfortunately to torque and hold down a head onto a high power engine it will stress the block a bit-no point in using chocolate bolts with the fear of the block cracking-it has to be able to hold the head evenly/firmly with little stretch

its pretty hard to find a good medium-has to be said those bolts dont look great though

Ridgey

iTrader: (5)

The Victor Reinz bolts seem the way to go at the moment.

costina

iTrader: (1)

I have new ones here supplied by Woodford which are 10.9's and state they are manufactured by victor reinz.


As said they need to be stretch bolts as the cossie head expands and contracts a fare amount. !2's could be used but a different set of torque figures will be required and after first heat cycle re torqued as per old style head bolts.


That would make sense to me.