2.2L Head stud evaluation
 

So I'm rebuilding a 2.2L motor and most of the head studs look perfect. They are all steel. However a few studs have some "surface rust" on them. (in other words it doesn't appear to have compromised the stud, but you can feel it with your fingernail.

Is this a significant issue? I imagine most steel studs pick up some rust since they are exposed and I hate to replace parts "Just because" and become a swapper, but I have some concern about stress risers from visible rust.

Any opinions?

If you clean them up you will find they are cut on some type of lathe, those tool cuts are worse stress risers than surface rust I would think. I just cleaned up my top 3.2 steels and painted them.

Yeah, I could definitely feel the 'machining marks' on them.. I think I'll take some slight more aggressive steel wool to them and see how deep the rabbit hole goes...

Thats something I never liked, you take your finger nail down the stud and it feels like the surface of an old 45 record, you old enough to remember 45's?

..and 75's I'm sorry to say...

I think I'm just going to replace them.. at $9 per it just ain't worth worrying about!