Opinions needed - Attaching accessories to head studs

[farrellg]

I am looking for opinions. My 1932 truck was missing several accessories that mount to the cylinder head studs. Items such as the plug wire loom tube, oil filter and horn. I am slowly finding these items. I now have the horn and plug wire tube. What I need opinions on is impact of Loosening one or two of the head nuts to mount these items. I do not know if the head was ever torqued to any specific value as I have not had it apart. I have rebuilt enough motors to know that I don't like the idea unless I re torque the whole head. However, no idea what the right value might be for this old motor. One way may be to just use fastener size specs. Options ? Help ?

[TexasJohn55]

I do not know the torque value. Are the studs long enough to add the bracket and use another nut to clamp them? You could check the torque and then add brackets and nuts as needed.......??

[Guest 1930]

I have never had an issue with loosening a nut at a time to do what I needed to do. I believe if there were an issue than you already have an issue just waiting to pop up.

[farrellg]

Studs are not long enough to add a nut. I think I can get a close torque reading by setting wrench low and keep trying / moving up the torque until the nut moves. This will give me an idea of how tight they are. I am pretty sure that the last time this head was tighten, a torque wrench was not involved.

[Guest DodgeKCL]

It will not be a problem. Have had to 'guess and by God' it myself and I've never had a head gasket problem afterwards. What I did do was use very thin internal tooth star lockwashers to hold things a little better. But once the head has gone through several heat/cold cycles everything will 'freeze' in place. You'll find out a few years down the road if you need to remove the horn,for instance, to repair it, the nuts will have to be 'cracked' loose. Just remember to retorque a couple of times after all this work. And do it ONLY on a cold head where the head has shrunk when it cooled down. Do not retorque a head when it is at anything but room temperature. As the head metal has expanded from the engine heat and the head thickness will shrink away from the bottom of the nuts when it cools down. Obviously there will remain a 'gap' under the head and lead to a blown gasket.

[frank29u]

I, like others, have not had problems with removing 1 or 2 nuts to add horn bracket and spark plug wire tube. http://forums.aaca.org/f154/1929-plymouth-model-u-360671.html is (I hope) a link to a thread where Chet provided torque and sequence for a Plymouth 4 cyl.

[farrellg]

Frank, that helps. This motor is a six but logic is same. I did find torque and sequence for power wagon 218. 52 to 57 ft lbs for stud nuts.

[frank29u]

Happy to provide a little assistance. Glad you have other info also. frank

[27dodger0]

I've had no problems removing a head bolt to mount a horn. As to torque, everything I've read about cars of this era, is a general statement about tighting bolts equally. You should have no problems!

[Pete K.]

An educated guess on torque for the cast iron head/block would be around 55 foot Lbs. on each stud nut.