On the positive side, I had previously been under the impression that in order to torque the head bolts it was necessary to remove the rocker arm shaft. This is exceptionally tedious because to do so meant that you had to reset the valve lash each time, which for me is a drawn out and laborious task that I dread. I had just found out that the one bolt which is hidden under the rocker arm shaft can be accessed by removing a spring loaded connector piece in the middle of the rocker arm shaft, allowing access to this one bolt. This was great news. I was using my new-to-me torque wrench, torquing the bolts in stepped sequence when all of a sudden I felt something strange through the handle. I had believed that it felt as thought I was pulling too hard for the amount of torque I had the wrench set, but I disregarded my feelings, thinking I was probably mistaken. It was shortly thereafter that I looked down to see that the head had cracked under the strain of an overtightened bolt.
The head bolt on the right reveals the massive crack.
The torque wrench was broken and was applying far too much torque. Upon closer inspection, I found that almost all of the head bolts on this side of the engine, which are all outside of the valve cover, had a smaller crack or the beginning so of a crack. These heads are no longer produced, have not been for many, many years, are nearly impossible to find, and when they are able to be found they are exorbitantly expensive. This was a devastating blow. I have been slowly working on this car for the last 7 years, chasing many problems and saving almost all of my birthday and Christmas money to get it running. After many problems fixed and a lot of patience, time and money spent to get the car driveable, all that remained to have a car that I could reliable drive around without overheating was to retighten these bolts.
I was literally, physically sick to my stomach at the prospect of this occurrence. I considered putting the car in the garage and not touching it out of disgust. I realized that in that scenario, the car would most likely sit there for months, possibly a year or more, and that it is much harder to begin work on fixing something several months from now rather than doing in the moment when the problem occurs, especially a problem that you have already been through several times and believe to have just resolved. I made the decision to tackle the problem immediately and push through the disheartened feelings and disgust. So, I made like the Queen of Hearts and went "off with her head." Since this isn't my first rodeo, it didn't take long before she was a pile of parts.
And the '31 is decapitated.
I took the head into Nashville to a reputable shop. He said that it was a bit of a challenge, but he would come up with something to fix the problem. One solution was to drill out the holes in the head that were cracked and insert a hardened steel liner, perhaps like valve guides, and then drill them out to the correct size.
As I neared the head shop in Nashville, the '79 Caprice began pulling to the left. I began to believe something had gone wrong with the brakes or ball joint I recently installed. Then it got worse. By the time I was about a mile from the shop I realized I was leaning to the left. The tire was nearly flat by the time I got to the head shop. They let me borrow an air tank and fill up the tire enough to get me up the road. I asked them if they trusted the shop next door to them and the guy gave an emphatic no, but recommended a shop about a block up the road. When they began looking for the leak nothing could be found. Then the guy tried to remove the valve core and the entire valve stem broke off. That was the problem. A new valve stem and $10 and I was back on the road. While at the shop I looked at an 89 Cadillac someone just brought in with 2,100 original miles. Then, as I waited an old man walked up and a roll back came in hauling a 47 Dodge truck. They unloaded the truck and began getting the old, original truck running.
