Does any one know if its a good idea to reuse the stock head bolts after you have removed the heads? I went to the GM dealership today and to different part numbers for head bolts and neither part number called for the correct number of bolts......

 

No in fact youre not suposed to reuse them. They are torque to yield on the ls based engines, and youre suposed to replace them (I reused mind though )

 

Yeah f-it, im reusing them...did you use loctite on them??

 

For how cheap you can buy new bolts, why would you risk it?

 

$4.04 X 15 isnt what I call cheap for bolts, but I understand the point....

 

$60.60 is not a lot to spend to make sure you don't leak coolant into your cylinders....

 

A lot cheaper than trying to remove a bolten bolt out of your block. Those bolts are stretched when they are installed and what are you going to do when you reuse them....stretch them some more. How far do you think they'll stretch before they get so weak and fail. Then like Thunder said, you'll have a leak and possible have coolant flow into you engine and possible hydrolock it.
But hey, its your engine go for it.

 

good point from everyone, but does anyone have the part numbers narrowed down? The GM Parts Garage has two different engine makes for the 4.8, 5.3, 6.0 engine sizes. One showed 16 bolts, the other showed 20 bolts....I only took out 15!!!!!!!!

 

15 from each head right, cause 15 divided by 2=7.5

 

you must have dropped one or something, should be the same number of bolts in each head