Big night tonight. I installed the pistons with new bearings and rings, got the oil pan back on, new oil filter, new head gasket and installed the head. Everything went super smooth up to this point - I used a bunch of assembly lube and triple checked torque specs before closing things up.
After torqueing the eight head bolts and 3 head assist bolts down I put the pushrods and valve wear tappets back in place and dropped the rocker arm shaft assembly on. The final step to secure everything was to tighten the rocker shaft assembly down using the brass looking nuts on the three stepped studs. I screwed the studs into place by hand and went to secure the nuts following the 40 ft lbs spec from the manual and ran into problems. The nuts started to snug down and then started spinning. The nuts appear to be stripping out on the studs and when I went to remove the nuts the entire stud came out instead. The nuts are now stuck on the studs and I can tell the nut or stud is stripped. Any thoughts on what went wrong?
I'm glad it's just the studs/nuts because that is easy enough to replace (I also have a spare set from the other tractor) but I'm not convinced if I were to try it again I would get different results. Is the 40 ft lb spec wrong? Is there a special technique that is required and I don't know about it?