Found a 1962 manual that changed how I torque cylinder heads

I was digging through a box of old books my uncle left me last month and found a factory service manual for a 1962 Chevy straight six. It said to torque the head bolts in three stages instead of the two I always did. I tried it on a 250 I was rebuilding and the head gasket didn't leak a drop. Anyone else got an old manual that taught them something the new ones skip?

3 comments

3 Comments

angela_harris1mo ago

My buddy Gary had a 1965 Ford Fairlane with a 289 that he could never get to seal right on the passenger side. He was pulling his hair out until he found an old Ford dealer training manual at a garage sale. It had a diagram showing the factory torque sequence went in a spiral pattern, not just back and forth like he'd been doing. He tried it that weekend and the gasket held better than any other job he'd done before. Now he swears by those old manuals for anything pre-1970.

patricia_gonzalez1mo ago

That 1962 manual sounds like gold, Patricia. I had a similar thing with a shop manual for a '68 F100 - it showed a criss-cross pattern for the intake manifold that my later books just called "in sequence" without any real detail. @angela_harris I bet your buddy Gary would've loved to trade notes on that Fairlane, those old Ford diagrams were something else.

oliverhernandez1mo ago

Did you see that old service bulletin they found for the 289? I heard it mentioned a trick with the passenger side head bolt hole that needed a specific chase before torquing.