The drill bit already touched the soft Al head. This become tricky now.
Q: what was your plan when you decide to drill it? Drill it out require precise center.
I suggest to call a pro at your skill level.

The valve cover nut should not be over tighten -- it won't help stop oil leaking as soon as the seal was compressed and the nut touching the sleeve. what torque spec did you use?

 

My plan was to drill out from the center and was clearly not where I thought it was and then I got off balance while drilling and that's when I went to the side. Clearly beyond my skill level for sure.

I set the wrench to 7.5 ft/lb, so either I had the wrong spec or the calibration is not correct. I hand tightened them first until I couldn't go further and was going back to torque them. Will have the shop check the other ones when I have them fix my mishap.

 

7.5 ft lbs sounds correct. Maybe the stud was weaken when over torqued by hand before.
Those studs should be Loctie to the head so they won't back out. One reason they back out during valve cover removal is because the nuts was over torqued on the cover.

 

The shop got the stud out and got the new one installed. They confirmed the torque on all the replaced studs and they were good. They insisted on checking the timing, but it should not have been necessary given nothing timing related was touched, right? Got a little nervous when the tech said that he could adjust the timing without taking the fan off again. The master tech overheard me telling him there was no way to put the pin in with the fan on and came over and assured me that he would make sure it was done properly. Good news is they buttoned everything back up and she's running great.

Happy to have her back, but she needs a bath.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

 

T They insisted on checking the timing, but it should not have been necessary given nothing timing related was touched, right? Got a little nervous when the tech said that he could adjust the timing without taking the fan off again. The master tech overheard me telling him there was no way to put the pin in with the fan on and came over and assured me that he would make sure it was done properly.

checking the timing -- vanos timing? Sure you don't need the pin to set the crank pulley at TDC; just eye ball the mark on pulley with the reference pointer on the block.

You didn't ask them to Loctite the studs to the head? If not the studs might try to come out -- raise the cover up while the cover is still held down by other nuts. This could strip the stud soft female thread on the head.

 

It's interesting they were able to put a new stud in without installing a helicoil or preferably a time-set (no coolant leaks). I wouldn't use JB-Weld either unless it was just to repair it and get it on sale. Yeah, blasphemy. The Bentley says 10NM NM or 89 inch-lbs. OK 7.5 ft-lbs is a little high but the worse point is 7.5 ft-# is so small that you can't use a ½" drive 50-250 #ft torque wrench!

 

They verified they used Loctie on the one that was replaced.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk