Hi All
I noticed that the lower control arm bolt to frame torques were in the 300ftlb range and my 18" Craftsman click tourque wrench only goes to 150. I've got air to remove them so that wasn't a problem but then the question became how to tighten them to the correct tourque? I'm also tired of putting pipes on the end of the wrench for TTY bolts, I don't like that they can slip and I could lose a knuckle or a finger.
My solution involved a pair of 24" long 1" black pipes from the hardware store ($7 each) and some leftover sockets and parts.
I simply took the pipes and measured in 3" from each end (leaving them 18" apart) and drilled a 7/8 hole with my bimetal hole saw and then used a burr grinder to open the hole up to the size of the socket and then I welded them in. I had a broken 1/2" universal that I cut down for one of them and then I used the old drive part from the last time I rebuilt my tourque wrench and a 1/2" socket. If you don't have any parts just buy a 1/2" universal and cut it up, it has both male and female ends and is only a few bucks.
It took a little bit of finess to get them aligned and straight but I built two of these in about 90 minutes.
If my math research is correct putting one on the end of my torque wrench will double the set click ie: if I set my wrench to click at 100 ftlbs there will actually be 200 ftlbs on the bolt when the wrench clicks. So one extension doubles my range to 300 ftlbs and two would triple my range to 450ftlbs. On top of that I don't have to resort to the pipe on the end of the breaker bar trick to do the Harmonic Balancer TTY AND I'll be able to tell what tourque it's at when it reaches 180 degrees.
I hope this helps someone.
JayArr
I noticed that the lower control arm bolt to frame torques were in the 300ftlb range and my 18" Craftsman click tourque wrench only goes to 150. I've got air to remove them so that wasn't a problem but then the question became how to tighten them to the correct tourque? I'm also tired of putting pipes on the end of the wrench for TTY bolts, I don't like that they can slip and I could lose a knuckle or a finger.
My solution involved a pair of 24" long 1" black pipes from the hardware store ($7 each) and some leftover sockets and parts.
I simply took the pipes and measured in 3" from each end (leaving them 18" apart) and drilled a 7/8 hole with my bimetal hole saw and then used a burr grinder to open the hole up to the size of the socket and then I welded them in. I had a broken 1/2" universal that I cut down for one of them and then I used the old drive part from the last time I rebuilt my tourque wrench and a 1/2" socket. If you don't have any parts just buy a 1/2" universal and cut it up, it has both male and female ends and is only a few bucks.
It took a little bit of finess to get them aligned and straight but I built two of these in about 90 minutes.
If my math research is correct putting one on the end of my torque wrench will double the set click ie: if I set my wrench to click at 100 ftlbs there will actually be 200 ftlbs on the bolt when the wrench clicks. So one extension doubles my range to 300 ftlbs and two would triple my range to 450ftlbs. On top of that I don't have to resort to the pipe on the end of the breaker bar trick to do the Harmonic Balancer TTY AND I'll be able to tell what tourque it's at when it reaches 180 degrees.
I hope this helps someone.
JayArr
I actually bought a half inch torque wrench just for those bolts.