At 01:29 PM 2/14/00 -0800, Philip Haldeman wrote:
>Then I went to tighten down the drain bolt with my handy-dandy new
>wrench. I set the dial, reefed on the bolt, putting pressure on it, but the
>wrench didn't "click". I decided I wasn't cranking hard enough, although my
>experience told me the bolt was plenty tight. Okay, I cranked harder. No
>"click". Harder still. I stopped and tried again, etc. No "click". Then,
>oops! I felt the whole bolt give way. Of course, I thought I'd stripped
>the threads (and so did my wife, by the sound of the cursing coming from the
>garage). . . .but luckily, it turns out I'd crushed the drain plug
>gasket---and it was this that caused the bolt to suddenly give way as it
>smashed the gasket down. Later in the day, I replaced that gasket, got out
>my normal old socket wrench and tightened up the bolt in the normal "snug"
>manner to which I'm accustomed.
It's possible that the gasket is designed to crush, like a spark plug
gasket - I don't know about your application. It's also possible that the
torque spec you got for the bolt was wrong -- I'd expect something in the
range of 14 to 18 foot-pounds.
The click should be definite - no question as to when you reach it. You
will eventually need one if you do much work on your vehicle...I even use
mine for torqueing up the wheels, after I get back from the tire store.
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