OK. It's a real pain trying to do this with the heads on the car. Just so hard to get all solvent out of those stud holes. Especially the ones that are almost blind.
I really took my time cleaning and drying this time. The Permatex 243 is much better than the other stuff I had. It's actually a bit goopy and sticky. I followed the Permatex instructions which say to add a few drops to the hole as well as make a circle on the stud threads. I took it really slowly. A few holes still bubbled up solvent after all the cleaning and drying I could do. For these I bottomed the stud, added a few more drops of sealant, then re-applied.
I did find one crazy thing. Intake stud on #2 was like I hadn't tightened it properly. On closer examination they never cut that hole deep enough. It's shallow enough to bottom the stud before contact. I got my grinding wheel out and shortened that stud a couple threads to where I could tighten the bolt down before it bottomed out.
I'm going to wait until morning to even put the rockers on. Maybe do the lash tomorrow evening. I really hope this works. But I will say, I could believe it if it did. The sealant and RTV was off the studs when I pulled them apart from the last thread or two right at the top. I think they never sealed. Partly, probably, failure to get things dry enough (too much sovent still in there). But also partly, I don't think my old threadlock was good for this application. And I don't think the RTV set properly.
Praying for a good result.
Sam