12j head gasket failed

hello everyone .

3 half years ago I rebuilt my 12j engine .

This was a full nut bolt gasket everything done job .

Crank polished
Block skimmed & honed “020”
Head skimmed& valves polished
Injector pump rebuilt
Cam & followers had minimal wear .

I had a break down other day & got recovered, this is the problem .


As you can see the gasket between 1 & 2 has completely failed , it was from turner engineering so a very good gasket in my opinion.

Why would this have happened so quickly ?

The manuals say to re use the old head bolts, they don’t state any mileage for a re torque “probably due to cast iron head “ ??

I did re check the torque after couple hundred miles btw & all was ok .

I can’t seem to find a similar thread on here .

Classic fail that. Ran a 10j petrol for many years and had a couple of changes for that reason.
Recon all there is to do is clean it up and renew. I never used new head bolts, just made sure correct torque sequence done in stages up to 90lbft [ if I remember right] but did do a retorque after 200ml ish.