On Fri, 25 Nov 1994, Thomas Schuster wrote:
> 
> Why should you not try to tighten the head bolts first? If the leaking is=20
> due to loosened bolts, you can cure the problem with tightening. While doing=
> this, you should pay more attention to high temperature of the coolant and=
> strictly avoid high temps.
> 
> T.S.
> 83=B4 Vanagon with a leaking rubber head gasket some months ago
> 
> 

I'm fairly certain that once a leak has found a path, that you will not
stop it just by tightening the bolts.  The gasket will still allow the
leak.  (someone else want to back this up for me?  or contradict?)
I supppose that if you want to back the bolts off and re torque them to
specs, (so long as they aren't the stretching type, I don't know) you can
but I doubt that this will fix an already established leak.
And if you torque them over specs you're asking to buy new heads.
Do any of you VW gods want to back me up here... He doesn't believe me.
I was trained by Ford (don't hate me) and I know that most of their engines
use the stretching type of head bolts.  I don't know about the wasser boxers.

Cheers

<sstones@io.org>
SStones             Toronto,  Ontario.