Bob J.

I'm a little confused by what you mean when you say that the head bolts were 
'stripped out', but the fact that some studs are sticking out further than 
others and won't remain torqued suggests to me that the holes in the case 
into which they are screwed have been stripped, ie. the engine's pulled some 
head studs.

This happened to a '70 T3 notchback I used to own.  The studs were reusable 
but I needed to have 'Case Savers' (threaded inserts similar to heli coils) 
inserted into the stripped holes.  The VW shop which did the work said that 
this is fairly common for the softer magnesium cases. I took the engine in 
stripped down to a short block and decided to risk the consequences of having 
some alloy shavings from the drilling and threading process enter the case.  

I have read that some engine rebuilders will put case savers in all 16 holes 
as a precaution, particularily if the engine is being modified for 
performance.

My T3 actually pulled two head studs on two seperate occasions, which I 
suspect was a result of the PO, who I know had had the heads off, over 
torquing the head nuts.  I was a little frustrated the second time, so I 
temporarily torqued all the remaining head nuts up to 30 foot pounds when 
the engine was out, which revealed a couple of other head studs about to 
go.  I don't know if this was a wise thing to do, but after that I had no 
more problems with pulled head studs.

Hope this helps.

Aaron Sedgmen
'74 camper
asedgmen@agso.gov.au
asedgmen@bmr.gov.au