That's Fighting Torque [Geddit!]

[stuzbot]

I must admit, I'm one of those people who generally just tightens bolts by feel and pretty much only uses a torque wrench for things inside the engine that are delicate or mission critical.

However, today I was doing the LBJs on my Colorado and I happened to see the torque settings in the manual, when looking through the procedure to get bolt sizes etc. So I thought "What the heck. Let's do it by the book" and dragged out the torque wrench. I was really surprised how much less tight following the recommended torque settings felt, compared to how much I'd have tightened the bolts, if doing it by feel.

Anyone else find following the official settings leaves you with the slightly uneasy feeling your bolts are not as tight as they ought to be?

 

[chapel gate]

there was a thread recently on torque settings.
my experience is:

the small stuff will be overtightened and the large stuff undertightened.

 

[stuzbot]

This one?...

A universal torque wrench setting

For the boat which of course has no repair manual and having just been told by real marine engineers the boat had to travel a week to find that pretty much everything pretend marine engineers in the Isle of Man fitted or repaired umpteen times in the past 2 years is loose . I'm thinking maybe...

www.landcruiserclub.net

Yes. I read that. Still surprised how little effort was required to tighten the main LBJ castle nut to 140NM and the wheel lugs to 120 [manual actually said 113 but that was too uneven for my OCD].

The old general rule of doing it by feel was stopping just at the point the metal felt about to stretch, but before it did actually stretch. As a consequence of that, I think I must have left a trail of ridiculously over-tightened nuts and bolts in my wake, over the decades before I bought my first torque wrench.

BTW. The biggest official torque setting I ever followed was 450NM for the crank pulley bolt on a VW LT35. Now that was proper tight! I think, subconsciously, I've been trying to emulate that on every nut and bolt I've tightened since.

 

[Towpack]

After years of hand setting the wheel nuts "good and tight" I decided to do the same, ie, start using the torque wrench after shearing two studs. Specified torque is 76lb/ft and I too was surprised how easily that is exceeded. I reckon "good and tight" must've been 15-20 lb/ft more than required

 

[karl2000]

I think it depends on what tools you're using - if you've got a long ratchet / bar its easy to overtighten most nuts. I think you'll struggle to overtighten a wheel nut too much if you use the standard wheel brace.

By the same token, if Kwik Fit have rattle gun'd your lug nuts to 200Nm, good luck getting those off with the standard wheel brace at the roadside!

 

[chapel gate]

This one?...

A universal torque wrench setting

For the boat which of course has no repair manual and having just been told by real marine engineers the boat had to travel a week to find that pretty much everything pretend marine engineers in the Isle of Man fitted or repaired umpteen times in the past 2 years is loose . I'm thinking maybe...

www.landcruiserclub.net

Yes. I read that. Still surprised how little effort was required to tighten the main LBJ castle nut to 140NM and the wheel lugs to 120 [manual actually said 113 but that was too uneven for my OCD].

The old general rule of doing it by feel was stopping just at the point the metal felt about to stretch, but before it did actually stretch. As a consequence of that, I think I must have left a trail of ridiculously over-tightened nuts and bolts in my wake, over the decades before I bought my first torque wrench.

BTW. The biggest official torque setting I ever followed was 450NM for the crank pulley bolt on a VW LT35. Now that was proper tight! I think, subconsciously, I've been trying to emulate that on every nut and bolt I've tightened since.

yes, that one.

i think we all inadvertently nip them up that bit more, just to be on the safe side.

 

[frank rabbets]

Back in the 60's my uncle, who was an inspector at Rolls Royce Aero Engines, was looking at my MC's in bits and said :-
"don't do the strong man act with the spanners".