Can you replace head bolts without head removal?

Long story short, I recently finished replacing the HG on my 91 B22. It being my daily driver, I started the job on Friday as I needed it to get to work monday. I ended up spending more money than I intended with a full head replacement and ended up cutting corners and reusing my head bolts. Since then, the bolts have loosened themselves and I am getting a minuscule amount of coolant leakage into the cylinders. I retorqued them (they loosened to about 45-50 fp) and it has been sitting ever since. I really don't feel like pulling it apart again just to replace the bolts... Can I replace them one by one without losing the seal on the gasket?

Wishful thinking.

If you are leaking coolant then your head gasket seal is already compromised and you are done.

Head gasket replacement requires many careful steps to be successful however there are a lot of people who "get away" with it (and I was one of them many, many years ago).

What is curious is that your head bolts have loosened themselves, typically this would not happen, the head bolts would either break or you might have a hard time getting them to the correct torque value - but even at that, I have re-used these bolts many times without issue.

I am thinking your problem lies elsewhere.

Theoretically, you could replace these, like one at a time. But I also agree that it's probably NOT a good idea, like Angus stated, and for tightening sequence issues.

I'd also wonder why the bolts loosened, likely weren't torqued correctly the first time.

All - what are the downsides to running it a while and then re-checking the bolt torque???

My guess is that the threads in the block or on the bolts themselves weren't cleaned before install, or oil being used on the threads during the install.

Do it once (again) do it right, and (hopefully this time) don't look back again. Run a tap down the holes and a dye along the threads of the bolts so you will be certain that the torque on the bolts is accurate. If there is any crud in the holes, you will get a false reading.

Also reused the bolts a number of time, even have a spare set in my shop (used) and not had HG problems.

Thanks for the replies guys. I think I'll just play it safe and do it again. I didn't give the bolt holes a whole lot of attention. I assume that probably compensated an accurate torque reading a bit. I'm not really sure how it could have been a 25 fp difference though. I am using my buddies digital wrench so I definitely got an accurate reading the first time. I'm still debating giving it a shot and seeing how it goes!
Thanks again

I reused my head bolts and never had a problem. It could be due to the brand of head gasket you used, some require re-torquing the head bolts. I used the fel-pro permatorque that says not to re-torque them.

I used a Fel-Pro. Like a few people have already said, I assume the gasket has already been compensated. I'll definitely be more thorough when I do it again this weekend

did you re-torque them after getting the engine to running temp?

Yep. Retorqued after letting it idle to operating temperature, then did once again after driving 10 miles from work the next day when noticed I had lost a bit of coolant.

also the gasket is not going to seal instantly .....i will take some time on it from some things i have seen on some hondas,5.0,5.8,and nissans they did not seal instantly but did very shortly after running