About half way through timing job on 2005 F-150 with 5.4l engine. Following FordTech's 4 part series. When torqueing the bolt's two of them broke, one for a cam cap and one for a timing chain guide. It's my cousin's truck and he's on the cheapest budget there is. If he has to buy a whole set of the cam bolts the cheapest I've been able to find are $120ish, and that will put us back a couple of weeks waiting. I'm going to call around to junkyards this afternoon and see if any are scrapping one of these engines soon and would be able to set aside the two bolts we need but I'm pretty sure that's a long shot. My questions are mainly about the cam cap bolts.

1) Any ideas for where to purchase these bolts individually rather than as a set?

2) Would there be any issue with replacing an individual cam bolt? I wouldn't think so for the timing guide bolt, but the cam caps I'm not sure since the machining of the caps to the towers is so specific. I wouldn't be too surprised if breaking this one bolt means the entire head has to be replaced.

3) One of the sites I found with replacement cam bolts says that the OEM bolts are torque to yield so they can't be reused. Is this true or are they just marketing their replacements with fear? I've only read a couple of the diagrams for the torque sequence but they didn't mention "torque to yield" or replacing all the bolts or turning the bolts an extra 90*.

4) And lastly, is it super alarming that these bolts broke before they hit the torque spec? It's only 8 ft lbs. The bolts are pretty thin though.

 

They are in fact torque to yield, buy a full set. Sorry. Not surprising they broke. Here are reusables for $70:

https://www.modularmotorsportsracing...oducts_id=1432

 

Bummer. Thanks for the link to the new set though.