If this were me, I'd be on the 'phone to ARP to get some REAL bolts for that thing.

EVERY FRIGGIN' TIME you have to pull the head, you're going to throw away the TTY bolts. The ARPs should be re-usable.

 

I did the oil trick a few months back with no change. O'Reilly's has a bolt and head gasket kit pretty cheap so I may pull the head over the weekend and know for sure what the problem is.

 

Head bolts broke so often on those motors that gm came out with a removal kit, so your could remove the broken bolt with the cyl head still bolted on. Can't remember the kent moore #.

 

Put a couple of squirts of engine oil into the #4 cylinder and recheck the compression. If it comes up you have stuck rings, if not most likely bad valve. I would then remove the valve cover, take the push rods off of #4 cylinder and put air into the spark plug hole and see where it comes out.

 

thanks for the info. I have a small trace of water in my oil and number 4 compression is 85 when the others are 130 so I was going to check the torque, should I go ahead and plan on a gasket change and new bolt? what are the odds of a broken bolt on removal? I bought this truck to put a v8 in it but it get almost 3 times the fuel mileage of my other truck so I need the engine to run a little longer.

 

what he said, don't re-use the bolts, they'll probably break.

 

There is no retorque of the bolts, they are torque to yield. That's why new bolts should be used, plus they used to break over time.

 

thats what chiltons says. I'm wanting to check or retorque the bolts, is this engine that big of a pos that I would need new bolts?

 

Torque all bolts to 18 ft lbs, then to 27 ft lbs except #9 bolt which is the drivers side front bolt that has the stud on it. Then give all bolts an addtional 90 degree turn. Make sure your using new bolts.