I don't bother to de-torque them super carefully in order..
but I do loosen them all evenly in several steps.

it should be obvious that if a group of fastners are fully
loosened...the last one will have a lot of pressure on it, making it
much harder to undo.

on ALL series of fastners ..you loosen them all in roughly equal small
steps.

you don't take 4 wheel lug nuts off leaving the last one at full torque
..right ?  same thing here.

On 2/9/2014 3:26 PM, J Stewart wrote:
> Ooooopps, yes I did! News to me they had be de-torqued in a specific pattern! What damage have I done? It was the head nuts on my spare that weren't torqued very tight, the ones on the head in the van were very tight. Jeff Stewart ----- Original Message -----
>> You need a thin wall 17mm socket. Now please don't tell me you
>> loosened and removed all the nuts except for an end corner! Head
>> especially on Waterboxers have to be de-torqued just the same as they
>> have to be torqued down. If they were somewhat loose than either they
>> were not properly installed or the engine was over heated to the point
>> the studs stretched and they are now garbage. The head (and even the
>> case) may also warped and twisted. This will show up as internal leaks
>> with combustion gasses getting into the coolant system.
>> Dennis
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On
>> Behalf Of J Stewart
>> Sent: Sunday, February 9, 2014 5:59 PM
>> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
>> Subject: Yet Another Head Pullin' Question.
>> OK, just the other night I pulled a head off my "spare " 1.9 motor,
>> and I can't for the life of me remember how I got the lower rearmost
>> head nut off. Now the scary part was, on the spare the head nuts were
>> not really tight, the ones on my 1.9 thats IN the van are. They are
>> all out except that one, I cannot get a socket on it. TIA, Jeff
>> Jeff Stewart