Dampers and front suspension
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Re: Dampers and front suspension
For decent grade bolts it would be 24 ft lbf. But I'm not sure what steel these are......
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philthehill
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Re: Dampers and front suspension
The problem and reality with tightening the damper bolts is that the tighter you have them the more you squash the alloy body of the damper.
I have just checked my damper mounting bolts with my accurate Britool torque wrench and they are set at 17 lb ft. Any tighter and all I am doing is squashing the damper body so I would not set them any tighter. If the body was cast iron or steel they would be set at 25 lb ft.
The same problem exists for the water pump if it has an alloy body any tighter than 17 lb ft and you just squash the pump body.
I have never used the locking tabs for many years just flat and spring washers under the bolt head; not having the locking tabs means that you can regularly check them for tightness and they do come loose, stretch or the damper body around the bolts gets compressed. If they do come loose they can wear the threads in the cross member. Whilst the locking tabs look good; in practice they do very little in making sure that the damper is held hard against the cross member.
I have just checked my damper mounting bolts with my accurate Britool torque wrench and they are set at 17 lb ft. Any tighter and all I am doing is squashing the damper body so I would not set them any tighter. If the body was cast iron or steel they would be set at 25 lb ft.
The same problem exists for the water pump if it has an alloy body any tighter than 17 lb ft and you just squash the pump body.
I have never used the locking tabs for many years just flat and spring washers under the bolt head; not having the locking tabs means that you can regularly check them for tightness and they do come loose, stretch or the damper body around the bolts gets compressed. If they do come loose they can wear the threads in the cross member. Whilst the locking tabs look good; in practice they do very little in making sure that the damper is held hard against the cross member.