TIGHTEN YER JUNK

This is just a reminder to everyone:

Any time you do a suspension lift, take an axle off, install wheel spacers or take off or modify ANYTHING on the drive train on your rig, you need to retighten everything that you had apart after 500 miles or so. This is especially important if you have taken it on a wheeling run as this adds a lot of wear and tear to the suspension components.

I retighten every under my heap either before or after every trail run as a matter of course and actually do that whenever I am under it for greasing, an oil change or anything else.

I was reminded of this yesterday when I was adjusting the brakes on the rear axle. I had recently replaced the V6 spooled axle with the repaired Tundra ARB'd axle. Sure I had torqued everything down on the reinstall, actually over torquing the wheel spacer nuts, lug nuts and spring U bolts a bit. Here is what I found:

The wheel lugs were still torqued tight as were the wheel spacer lug nuts. Everything else checked out fine, too, with the exception of the spring U bolts. These had backed off from the initial install torque of 80++ to around 60 fp. At this point, should I have kept driving it, all they would have done was to get progressively looser, not a good thing..I have, in years gone by, rolled a rear axle right out from under my rig before. This was more due to the aluminum spacer/blocks I was using at the time (almost 30 years ago) blowing out than anything else, but the damage it caused was excessive. This was from a dead stop taking off from a stop sign (big tires, big hp, heavy right foot), too. I broke the drive shaft, bent the U bolts, bent one of the rear springs and damaged both quarter panels badly. Think about what would have happened at any kind of speed...All that little mess did was leave my rig sitting partway out in traffic with the rear axle/wheels where the quarter panels used to be

Anyway, there is a real reason that any manufacture states in the lift stuff: "retighten everything after 500 miles"....and it isn't because they are simply blowing smoke...

So, take a minute to tighten your junk. Easier to do in the driveway or garage of your home rather than on a trail run after you have broken something...

Great advise Pete!

Excellent advice Pete. I just installed my new front axles and let my friend borrow my truck while he was in town. He put 500 street miles on it and when I got it back practically the entire front end had come loose. Didn't check before a trail run and had to retighten everything without a torque wrench on the trail. Had loose upper and lower control arms, track bar and steering stabilizer. Will be taking Pete's advice this Saturday to be ready for a run on Sun.

Excellent advice. This is something easily over looked. Can also be a $$$$ mistake. :D

Listen to this one people. Save you tons of hassle in the long run.

Not 4x4 but both the race cars both had issues cause of this...
[IMG]http://i720.photobucket.com/albums/ww206/dannan_w/Racing/415798_478619565488878_1259280271_o.jpg[/IMG]

This is quoted from a thread on the same subject on ChevyTalk: [URL="http://www.chevytalk.org"]Main Index - ChevyTalk --The Social Network for Chevy Fans [/URL]
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06-15-05 03:12 AM - [URL="http://www.chevytalk.org/fusionbb/showpost.php?post/719484/cto_session_id/8052f879da240f7cca9fa3d0b9c609a4/"]Post#719484[/URL]

Recently Art bumped into a high-school friend who had just purchased a 55. Good car, and Ron was having a ball with it. It had a BBC and a few other modern touches, but it was just a fun driver.

Last weekend Ron and some friends installed a new steering column and steering wheel into the car to further update it. On Sunday, Ron was out for a cruise, enjoying the car and decided to pass a slower vehicle in front of him.

As he was passing, the steering wheel came off in his hands.
the car drifted into the ditch and crashed. While Ron was wearing a lap belt, the resulting crash impailed him onto the steeing column and killed him.

This is the 55-57 MODIFIED forum. All of us on here have done something to our cars, from suspension, steering, wheels to brakes. If anything can be learned from Ron's death its the importance of double-checking. Are those nuts and bolts tight? Are they loc-tighted or safety wired where they should be? Are those lug nuts properly torqued down? Are your suspension bushings & rod ends in good order? Have any welds cracked? It doesn't hurt to spend an hour or two to put your car up on jacks once or twice a year and go from bumper to bumper checking for loose nuts & bolts, worn hoses & frayed wires.

Hopefully we can all learn from such a terrible accident like this.[/I]

I'll also mention again painting the underside junk under your rig.

If the paint is worn off, you have an issue that needs to be sorted out.
If you mark (finger nail polish, metal marker, paint) any visible critical nuts and bolts (steering, steering arms, spring nuts, etc) with a stripe once they are torqued correctly, it is obvious with a quick check to see if the mark still lines up.
Check for missing cotter pins in all of the steering linkage castle nuts. These are what keep these nuts from vibrating out.

While you are on your back looking at the underside of your rig, look for any wires or hoses that are rubbing against any metal. If you find any, zip tie them out of the way. If you cannot do this, split a piece of tubing with a razor knife and slide that over the wire or hose for a wear point. This is essentially what the manufactures do when they sleeve similar hoses.

Was about to go out and tighten my junk and thought about this thread. Figured I'd give it a bump for people to do the same. Time of year you don't want to be wrenching when you could be wheeling.

I'm doing the same thing today. Headed to Moab Wednesday and wanted to make sure everything was good. Found the pitman arm nut was loose as well as a couple of my u-bolts.

Stuff can work it's way loose people! Routine maintenance is critical to minimizing trail break downs!

Good reminders!

I've been battling a CEL that should finally be resolved and spent some time under the truck but have yet to check everything. Now that it looks like the CEL is finally off I can move ahead, tighten everything and think of hitting some trails w/o worrying that something that rattled loose over the winter is ready to fall off on the trail. :tisktisk:

I was going to bring this topic up when I do the writeup from replacing my track bar. While giving everything a once over, I discovered that the nut for the passenger side LCA had worked its way completely off the bolt.

Locktite or
My Fave "Nylocks"

Getting ready to do this this afternoon, I've been on 3 runs since I did it last. Caught a loose track bar bolt last time. the only thing I can add is go to the car wash first and blast the underside of your rig, it makes the experience much more pleasant. :thumb:

My ToDo item before leaving for Moab...

I do this regularly!

I think I found my annoying squeak which appears to be a stripped bolt found when tightening stuff. Now to fix it...

I will be adding this to my list of quarterly maintenance.

The joys of a hoist. I do a walk around every oil change..
And a quick bolt check before and after every run !!

Bump. If you are hearing noises, clunking, etc. Tighten your junk.

:wrench: this is done every oil change and very regularly on my rig.
I am under it often to inspect the trail damage after a trip....my frame side brackets have takin a beating, they are bent at the bottom and squeezed tight!