6mm cylinder / head bolts that also hold chrome cover

cylinder head/cylinder bolts with chrome heads and go all the way down to the engine cases where mistakenly undone by me thinking they where just holding the chrome covers on. as soon as i realised they where head and cylinder bolts i re tightened them. Thing is do you think i got away with it and no harm done or have i distorted any thing ....

I did the same thing on my vl800   no problems unless you break the seal usually  

no seal brakes,just un did them.....pulled them out ....thought....oh shit....and put them back in and tightened them up again....the bike has no oil or water in it as the engine was out of the frame at the time. im building a chop with it and had just sprayed the frame (engine back in now) the bike has done 9,000 miles from new (1992) but has bin sat in a barn for 7 years. i started it up when i got it and it ran fine with a nice quiet motor, so turned it off again and started work on it.....so ya think i got away with it then mate ??

Hi Tubz,

Yes, as long as you only slackend them off, then retightened them you should be OK. The parts on the gasket joint lines are usually 'bonded' together after a period of time & engine running.
From a cylinder point of view - The base gasket should be OK as it is unlikely the 'seal' of the gasket was broken. The only one that could be an issue is the head gasket, because the pressure on the valve gear is actually pushing against the head/barrel interface - but that should be fine as the main 4 head bolts are under the cover that you slackened the bolts on ... so you should be OK with the main head gasket if you did not touch the 4 larger head bolts.
I don't think the head cover is under any load, but the workshop manual does say you should have the piston of the respective cylinder on TDC on the compression stroke when you undo the bolts on the head cover. 
If the mating face of the head cover to the head did not visibly separate then you should be OK, and the 'natural bonding' on the joint line should have kept everything oil tight.
Fingers crossed ... & you should be OK
Hope that might help.
Cheers   Yam

many thanks....yes i thought it would be ok but just wanted other opinion from you people who have more knowledge of these bike. i have 2 other bikes at the mo to...both bmw. i just sold last bike i built (Honda valkyrie  f6c) so im throwing my not inconsiderable weight in to building this vs 800 chop. so thanks for your help. tubz

Hey Tubz,
Nice to hear you've had a 'Valk' too ..... I like them in a crazy indulgent sort of way - still have mine.
Cheers    Yam

Must agree with the other guy's, shouldn't be a problem.  

Ive done it on my M800, no damage done, but I did s**t myself when I realized what I had done