Had a flange gasket blow on a 600 psi line during a pressure test last Thursday

It was a brand new spiral wound gasket, but the bolt torque was off by about 15 foot-pounds on two of the studs. We re-torqued the whole set in a star pattern and it held fine. Anyone have a good trick for keeping track of torque sequence on a big, crowded flange?

3 comments

3 Comments

thomas8156d ago

Used to just wing it and hope for the best. Seeing a gasket blow from uneven torque changed my whole view on that. Now I mark each bolt with a paint pen in the order I need to hit them.

richarddixon6d ago

My neighbor's old Ford blew a head gasket because he just cranked bolts down in a circle, @thomas815. Took him three tries to get it right.

lewis.gray6d ago

Yeah, the paint pen trick is a total game changer. It sounds simple, but that visual guide stops you from second guessing yourself halfway through. I learned the hard way too, warping a valve cover on a small block by just going around. Now even on simple jobs I follow the manual's pattern and do the three-step torque. It just saves so much headache and wasted gaskets.