Dooh, I hit my head

Depends upon how desperate you are, but there are numerious engines out there that are running 2 headgaskets.

I'm not certain how thin a single headgasket gets when properly installed. But I'd put some clay or window pucky about the size of a pea on top of every thing that moves and gently crank around with the headgasket in place but not bolted down.

Head studs must be sealed by the shoulder being tight against the block. There is also some good stud-pucky sealant available to use too because some of the studs go into the engine water jacket and leak otherwize.

Eather double nut or capnut your block studs to about 60-65 ft/lbs to seal the stud shoulder into the block. Then torque your cylinder headnuts to 55 ft/lbs in the proper sequence.

My Boeing designers handbook lists brass 7/16 NF with 5/8 hex head at 27 ft/lbs. Caution: most 7/16 nuts are 11/16 hexhead and will not fit the manifold nut space. You can get new 7/16 5/8 hex brass nuts, even at real Ford automobile parts counters..... .....Dell, who sez: get your quality daddy time now with your helper, cuz they're too soon gone.

Childrens playdoe, clay, even raw pie crust flour dough. Machine shops constantly use it. I could go down to my tool crib at Boeing and get a stick of it. Its not an uncommon commodity. You just have to know about it and how and when to use it.

Samething with plasti-gauge for checking bearing clearances. Little calibrated strings of soft plastic that gets squeezed when you do a test fitting when putting an engine crankshaft bearings together. The width of the squeezed plastic string tells you how much clearance your bearings have. This is something that the parts houses have on the back shelf and not hanging out on the checkout counter. You just gotta know about it..... .....Dell