how many times can you reuse stock head bolts?

V-6 head bolts can not be reused. V-8 bolts can be reused. Just do what Gearbanger 101 told you.

whoever tells you that you can reuse those TORQUE TO YIELD bolts is a meathead. You can't reuse them. They stretch after the first use. Get a manual for your car. In the manual it will tell you not to reuse those bolts and it will tell you the correct way to do things. Take my advice and get the book.

we should do a poll on this since there are so many conflicting answers

can you reuse the ARPs?

ARP does not make torque to yield fasteners - ARP are NOT torque to yield. Provided they're not overtorqued, they can be reused.

My understanding is that the factory switched to torque to yield head bolts at some point - I have a vague recollection that the SN95 cars (94/95) have torque to yield head bolts, but don't hold me to it. Torque to yield bolts can only be "torqued to yield" one time - can't be reused.

90 blue5.0 has the correct answer. Ford used torque to yield head bolts on 93 and up 5.0L engines and they have flanges under the heads of the bolts. You can replace them with the earlier head bolt design and use the early torque spec.

I reused my 85s headbolts once with no trouble but only had the heads on for 5 months before swapping heads and using new bolts.

i think in the 90's somewhere they went to torque to yield. well anyway the non torqu to yield can be use a few time but not indefinetly. i had a machinist put hardened valve seats in my 289. he screwed up the seat alignment i think because 5 seperate times i got a stuck exhaust valve after the engine got warmed up and had to pull the heads off 5 different times. about the 4th time when installing one of the head bolts didn't feel quite right and snapped off at about 60 foot pounds. not a big deal the bolt came right out with a screw driver, but ruined a gasket. ive ran across 2 other head bolts on other engine that didn't feel right so pulled them out stuck em in a vise and bent them and threw em away.
an easy way to tell if the head bolts are torqu to yield is to go your local parts store and if they have them in stock more than likely their torque to yeild.

gaslight wrote:

whoever tells you that you can reuse those TORQUE TO YIELD bolts is a meathead.

I used my Haynes manual as a reference before I posted. When it said to make sure the head bolts went back into the same locations that they came out of I was sure they were reusable.

Ref: Haynes Ford Mustang & Mecury Capri - Section 2D-12 #9