Dale, the machine shops that I take my head work to do, Magnaflux, that's how the surface crack in no.3 first showed up. I polished the crack till it passed a Spot Check at home before I decided to have all the headwork done to it.
Hi ya Fred, I have to admit, I haven't tried to re-torque the head. I'm just so sure that the crack has migrated into the water jacket that I've kind of pushed some other things aside. Re-torquing the head was one of the things that I had on the list.
I try to apply a little common sense to these things. When you think about it, virtually none of the new cars, trucks, tractors, lawn mowers, in other words, none of the new internal combustion engines require the cylinder heads be re-torqued after they leave the factory. So why would this be a requirement for a repair job??? I also have reservations about re-torquing a hot engine.
Not that it will hurt anything but I have never subscribed to this practice.

Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Denny G
Sandwich, IL