Head bolt washer question

[idreamidrive]

I am in the middle of doing a valve seal replacement with the head still on the car. I look down at the oil galley that is at the intake 4 cylinder side of the engine and see the washer for the outer head bolt laying in the oil passage. I currently have the cams out and was wondering what your opinion on this would be.

Say screw it, it has gone the last 40k miles like this with stock boost levels and not worry about it.

or

Unbolt that head bolt, put the washer on, and then torque it down. I am fearful of this one, just incase it does lift the headgasket and now I have to do a headgasket on this beast. My only question here is if the bolts are supposed to be stretched, and the washer wasn't there, then it shouldn't have been stretched or it might have been, but not correctly now.

other options?

 

[tektic]

I would remove the washer clean it up tie a string around it and hang it from my rear view mirror. Its a reminder I need to save money for when the head starts leaking.

 

[tektic]

Stock 1g head bolts don't stretch. If they did you need to replace them. Otherwise they are reusable. It shouldn't be an issue. put it back in if you pull the head in the future. Or pull the head now because if your valve stem seals have been leaking a while your valves could probably use a cleaning anyway.

2g bolts are torque to yeild and only used once.

This engine was burning lean from bad injector seals and also suffered from leaky valve seals.

 

[idreamidrive]

I just removed the washer and buttoned everything back up. I will just turn the boost up and see where/when the headgasket lifts... I think this engine needs a rebuild anyways.

I was hoping the new lifters would take care of the head tick on start up, but looks like it is still there. Sounds like a diesel tractor on start up and sounds like it is coming from the intake manifold.

The valve seals are just a bandaid until I can get my spare motor shipped to me.

 

[prove_it]

What oil filter are you using? Has the head ever been machined?

 

[idreamidrive]

Just started it up again. The lifter tick is gone, but still has a "rattle" near the cylinder 1 intake side that goes away with throttle at around 2200 rpm. Boost leak down test only has revealed that the BOV was leaking, nothing about the intake manifold gasket leaking. I might just pull the intake manifold anyways to make sure that everything was done correctly.

Oil filter is a wix gold and head was machined, probably didn't have the oil port mod done to it. Whomever worked on this car last half-assed a lot of stuff. I am just glad I have my parts car to fix most of it.