J&P Community

 I changed the cam bearings 2 winter's ago in my wifes 97 Road King. It had 42000 kms on it. This summer it rolled over 60000 kms and started having a chirping noise on start up. I took heads off today and was surprised when i barely had to push the box end wrench to loosen them. I follwed the service manual torque when i did the work, and i remember thinking at the time that there should be a better way than angle torques. Does anyoune have a set torque value for these headbolts?

 You are using dis-similar meatals. Steel bolts, alum case heat expansion and contraction loosens everything up. When Torqing the heads use Red Lock-tite. This prevents the bolts from loosening. You will need to heat the bolts prior to disassembly.

As the cylinders are captured between the the heads and the case, HD deemed the torque and turn method to be the best. I've put a few of these together over the years and when assembling you need to lubricate the threads on the head studs and the underside of the head bolt heads. Doing this, and the described assembly method by the factory, you will end up very near 45 ft/lbs on a torque wrench. That said, even though I know that, I do not pull to that value, I always do 7 ft/lbs, 14 ft/lbs then 1/4 turn and as long as I have lubricated  correctly (I use antiseize), I've never had an issue.

Sorry Sleep, I do not recoment the use of locktite here.

 Scott, No problemo. Sounds like he has a habitual problem.

Thanks for advice.......what habitual problem are we talking about???