Sorry to admit I have been so dumb

After a long illness I have started putting cast heads back on my 350 tpi
Camaro.

Struggled to find all the stuff i put away, had heads skimmed as had small water leak got some new gaskets and new fel pro head bolts.
Put it together and torqued down, Then after finding the old bolts in box in garage noticed I had not put the washers on the new fel pro bolts

I'm not as young as i was memory is not good, I do know these bolt hole go through block so no issues with length as did run tap though to clean out threads.
I really don't want to pull it all out again as it will mean new head gaskets again and new bolts.
Question is do you think it will be OK without the washers on cast heads?. or any other suggestions please. Sorry guys I know I am such dumb ***. No fun getting old.

 

Cast what? All heads are "cast".

Factory head bolts did not use washers. AFAIK FelPro ones don't either.

One thing you should DEFINITELY have done though, is to use sealer on the bolt threads. All of them go directly into the water jacket and will leak coolant without that.

Use some kind of "automotive high-temp thread sealer with Teflon", whatever is available in the UK which I have no doubt there is something. NOT silicone, RTV, shellac, Loctite, or anything else. Pop em back out, one at a time, and daub the threads with it, and put a bit under the head of the bolt as well.

Yeah I feel your pain on the memory thing... they say as you get older your memory is the second thing you lose; problem is, I forget what the first one was supposed to be...

 

Yes Understand about cast heads, I don't know why the old bolts I found had washers on them ? unless someone had rebuilt it before, as only owned it about 2 years. yes did do sealer around threads before putting them in so there fine, Thanks for advice

 

I don't either... they don't belong there. At least, not with stock or direct-replacement bolts, such as FelPro.

What material are the heads "cast" out of? Since ALL heads are "cast" - none are forged, machined from billets, or whatever else - that's not a very useful description.

 

Steel/Iron heads not aluminium they are original heads, sorry for poor descriptions,

 

Right... cast iron... (definitely not steel)

Some L98 motors, specifically the ones in Vettes, are extremely similar to your Camaro one, except they come with cast aluminum heads. Although, it makes very little difference to the assembly process; the bolt torque and all that, is designed for proper gasket crush, and has little or nothing to do with the material the heads are cast from.

Some aftermarket head bolts such as ARP and the like, use washers; could be, that's what was on there.

Head bolts in this kind of engine are not torque-to-yield and are therefore reusable. Unless they've already been used a million times, or are degraded in some way (rust for example, or known to have been over-torqued, or threads stripped or something) they don't really "need" replacing like some motors do.

 

Thank you very much that has made life lot easier for me, and info on re use of head bolts is useful also,
Step by step I will get there cheers.