[alfa] head nut torque

["David Jarman" <jarmanhome@xxxxxxx>]

Today I re-torqued the head nuts on my '91 Spider, following the procedure in
the factory manual, i.e. loosen the nut, apply light oil to the washer, then
torque to spec (65 ft.lb. for me).  All done in order, of course, as noted in
the manual.  On the second nut, a bit of coolant seeped out upon loosening of
the nut.  I immediately torqued it back down.  Seeing this, I decided to
simply go over the other eight and retorque in place (no loosening).  After I
had finished some other work, I started the motor and allowed it to warm up.
No apparent problems nor seepage.

I seem to recall this procedure was discussed recently, and certain Alfisti
expressed strong feelings about whether or not the nuts should be loosened.
Normally I put a lot of faith in factory information, but I am tempted to skip
the nut loosening in the future.  In all the years I've owned the car (it has
about 57K miles on it), I followed the factory procedure when re-torquing the
head nuts.  Now, I confess I've kind of got the willies over it!

What sayeth the AD?

Dave Jarman
Lexington, KY
USA
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