Last winter I had cylinder heads worked by a local machine shop and replaced head gaskets with AB's hg kit. I replaced every gasket from the deck of the block up. A machinist from said shop came and helped me clean up the face of the engine block. I used elgin hg and the new head bolts, I chased the threads in the block, cleaned the threads and oiled bolts. The mating surface was cleaned excessively, the heads were placed on smoothly and in one shot. Torqueing went smoothly with the bolts and block marked for each 90 deg. turn. It's been almost a year and 6,000 miles no leaks anywhere until yesterday. I saw some ugly orange on the front corner of the driver side head. Upon further inspection the front of the passenger head right in the center is damp. I'm going to tear into passenger side at least to inspect gasket. My question is, are the hg leaks ever around the front of the cylinder head? should I throw out the stretch bolts? Replace with ARP studs? I'm going to do a coolant system pressure test tomorrow when I have a chance. At the same time of the hg job I also installed new timing chain, timing gears, front cover gasket, oil pump, water pump, radiator, thermostat. Thanks in advance.
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