[Tiggyboot]

I work for a machinery manufacturer. I'm an electrical engineer but also get involved in some mechanical stuff. Anyway, I was looking through my company's engineering standards book and saw the write up on torque specs for various size fasteners as well as correction factors for when anti-sieze or other type of lubricant is on the threads. As you can imagine, the oil drain plugs will have oil on them, so will the threads in the crank case and the catch tank. So, when you crank that thing to 17 ft/lbs like it says, you are actually putting upwards of 34 ft/lbs on it. So no wonder the damn threads are being ripped out. The correction factor is approximately 0.5. I will post the document from my work in pdf (if I can!) It's a good reference to have. So I would say the proper setting on your torque wrench for any lubed bolt/thread connection is half of what it says in the book.

Marcel


see below for two more spec sheets

 

[GYTR700SHUFF]

Re: Oil Plug stripping - some insight as to why it's happened.

Good lookin out. I'm coming up on my first oil change, this will be very helpful.

 

[DuneMe]

Re: Oil Plug stripping - some insight as to why it's happened.

Good info! Thanks. . .

Looking forward to seeing the .pdf! I could probably use that for work too!

 

[Tiggyboot]

bolt torque references, metric and SAE (imperial), keep in mind, those figures for Max Torque is when you are bolting two surfaces together and are basically torquing to yield. This is what you would set your torque wrench to if you wanted to tighten that much. It is a guide, not a hard fast rule. For some bolted joints, you don't necessarily want to tighten that much, ie...something like a split clamp on handlebars or something....if you tighten to yield, you'll probably break the clamp before you stretch and break the bolt.

 

[blewbayou]

Here is what i found. I did my first oil change with out a torque wrench, but i was carefull not to over torque it or thought i was. I finaly found a 3/8 drive torque wrench and checked it, it was over torque. checked my spark plug, as i torqued it by hand(hand tight and a quarter turn), it was over torqued. Check others that i did by hand and they were all over. Torque wrench is a must, luckily i did not do any damage. Even trying to be carefull, thinking that you are not over torqueing by doing it by hand will give you an over torqued bolt on these things.

 

[oziraprider]

hi guys. had a problem with the local bike shop here in sydney when i took the pride and joy for a first service. it came back with a leak from the sump... when i investigated i found slivers of aliminium in the thread of the sump plug. went back to the workshop and they very apologetic by now in stalled a heli coil to replace the tripped thread... it still leaks and im still pi%%$ed off with these guys. moral to the story if you want it done right do it yourself.

 

[DuneMe]

Good info. . . Thanks!

Oz: Amen! I've seen some of these num-nuts work on things and I may do a crappy job because I don't know what I'm doing but, these "trained professionals" are doing crappy work and they DO know!!!

I just can't see paying someone to do an oil change on my quad.

Not to hijack the thread but, is anyone else running the Scott's Oil Filters?