Head Bolts and a vareity of issues

[23L88]

Hey there guys, I have quite the issue going on. Well, about two years ago I was replacing the head gasket on my '88 2.3L, and everything went well, up until I had to torque the head bolts...all but two stripped. SOO my dad went out (i was 15 at the time) and got some heli-coils and we decided we might as well place them in ALL the holes, well installation went just fine, and then I went to torque them again..well they just didnt want to..The bolts didnt even want to go in, but after being thickheaded i forced them to work (bad idea). Put everything back and started the truck up (which it did), and even ran fine for a while, but after about 30 minutes it started blowing black smoke out the exhaust pipe and i knew instantly it was burning oil (it smelled just like burnt oil too) we gave up then and there.

TWO years later

I was digging through my dad's toolbox because i was working on his harley (im now way more skilled than with the ranger incident) and i found the tap used to install the heli-coils, out of curiousity i looked at what it was meant to tap...IT WAS FREAKING IN METRIC!!!! i KNOW this is the tap we used because i put it there two years prior and we have NO tap and die sets. Anyways last i checked the 2.3L ranger uses 7/16X14 head bolts, so i was furious.

Here's my questions: Am i correct on the head bolt size?

Time-Sert makes inserts that repair failed heli coils which they call Big-Serts (how original), they have a size for 7/16X14, would this work in repairing the threads PROPERLY?

How many dowels does the head use? because i only saw one


-i may have other questions further along the line but for now that's what im curious on, and thanks ahead for the help

 

[Joeymt3]

About 4 months ago I removed the head from my '97 2.3. I remember those head bolts being 12mm with a 1.75 thread pitch.

I think that there was two dowels, but i'm not for sure.

 

[23L88]

hmm, looks like i was wrong, because after further inspection of the tap, and installing tool, they both read M12X1.75, guess those were the right ones after all (assuming a '97 has the same bolt thread pattern as an '88)

 

[Mark_88]

I always run the same size die over the threads to both clean and check them for proper size...sometimes just cleaning the bolts with the die will make them work better...as long as you're not rethreading them...

 

[23L88]

well after using a caliper several times over many bolts i have concluded the bolts are indeed M12X1.75 which is really just a waste of my time. haha. Well i believe i will save up some cash and purchase some of those Big Serts for head repair at M12X1.75