How many times can rod and main bolts be torqued?

Our rule of thumb was no more than 5 clamp cycles on bolts or they need to be replaced. We "saved" 2 cycles for service, one for a repair, one for a rebuild.

Now keep in mind that when we machined the rod and cap together, that was the first clamp cycle on the bolts.

Then on the engine line, we had to split the rod and cap to install the engine, which was clamp cycle #2.

This left us one repair on the engine line or one time to recycle the pistons if we had to tear down and recycle the parts for clamp cycle #3.

Like I said, we saved two clamp loads for service.