99 Escort head bolt question??

[94DroptopZ28]

I have a question regarding the torquing of the head bolts on my 99 Escort with the 2.0 SOHC motor. I torqued down all of the new head bolts in the correct sequence and then to find out that the torque wrench wasn't working so the bolts are too tight, well my question is if I just loosen the head bolts and torque them down with a torque wrench that works to the correct 44 ft lbs will I have to pull the head back off and change the head gasket again?? The only reason that I ask this is because the whole motor is already put back together already and I don't wanna have to take the head back off if it's not neccesary...

Thanks in advance for your help!

[GTP Dad]

I wouldn't loosen the head at this point due to the fact that you may cause the gasket to leak. At the present time it is sealed but if you loosen it then the gasket will expand slightly and will probably fail. You don't say how much you overtorqued the head but unless you really over did it I wouldn't worry too much about it .