I am working on a lower control arm right now but I am stucked. I ordered a Tekton torque wrench online but it was not clicking. Unless it did and I never noticed. I ran to OReilley and bought a new one from a different brand but it wasn’t clicking either.
I can feel as if I am over tightening the bolts but no clicks on either wrench. I have tried loosening the bolts and tight them again very lightly but nothing. What am I doing wrong? Am I having two broken wrenches?
Also… I can see a bunch of numbers in the service manual but I am not sure I can understand what it means.
For instance… A bolt has these numbers written right next to it: 44-58 {4.4-6.0, 32-43}
In a corner it says of the whole exploded image of the control arm it reads: Nm {kgf.m, ft.lbf}
So I know these are different units but what’s with the 44-58? or 32-43? What is that? Should I just pick the last number or in between those numbers?
It means that’s the torque range you should be aiming at. Your wrench is probably in ft.lbs so you should be going for the third set of numbers (second in the brackets).
I’d also like you to verify that you have used a click-style torque wrench in the past so we can eliminate the possibility that you’re using it wrong.
I do note that Tekton makes one torque wrench that starts above the torque you’re aiming for, so if you got that one and are, say, adjusting it to 132ft.lbs, it will not click on a 32ft.lb bolt.
A little googling shows 44 newton meters == 32 foot pounds == 4.4 kgf-m, so that’s just the different units to measure the same torque. 32-43 foot pounds is probably what you are after there OP, presuming your . See if you can borrow a beam torque wrench. Maybe from an auto parts store. Those tend to be more stable, and you can compare yours to what the beam version says. When you use the TW, set it to a number within the given range, perhaps biased a little to the higher number. So if you are trying to achieve 32-43 foot pounds, set it at 39 maybe.
Click type TW’s have to be calibrated every once in a while. A magazine article I read recently was about restoring a Peerless engine, and after everything was done, upon first start up the restored engine croaked and spewed oil. Turned out the click-type torque wrench used to tighten the head bolts was out of calibration.
Well, what I meant by that is that oftentimes if you try to put 132 pounds on a 32 pound bolt, you will snap the head off the bolt before you get to 132 pounds.
What I was trying to make sure of is that when you align the dash mark on the 40, that you’re not actually aligning the dash mark on the 140.
Nice! yes I was picking a number in between those. But I can’t get it to click… Two wrenches. I asked my girlfriend to go to Oreilly’s and get another wrench.
If it doesn’t click… I might be damaging it somehow! I have watched 3 videos on how to use a torque wrench lol
On some torque wrenches, the click is very subtle. If you’ve never used one, it’s possible that you don’t know what to expect, or what the click is supposed to feel like
On other torque wrenches, the click is unmistakable, very loud and can definitely be felt.
Is yours the kind where you spin the thumbwheel on the side?
Experiment on something that’s really easy to access, like a wheel lug nut. Those are torqued in the 60-90 foot pounds range on both of my vehicles as I recall.
Auto repair science is a little different than the science taught in high school science class. For one thing, you can’t always believe what the instruments are saying … lol … Good for you OP for getting to the bottom of it. Best of luck.
We can’t always believed scientific instruments either. That’s why there is calibration annually and tests are repeated to verify previous results. It is part of how a hypothesis becomes a theory and a theory becomes a law.
Congratulations @Triathlor. Having the insight to recognize a problem like that and the common sense to stop short of breaking the bolt are talents that are somewhat rare among DIYers and not all that common among professionals.
