Don't over torque

[kevman]

I just found out the hard way. My Helm manual for '84 states the bolt torque for the rocker covers is 50 ft lbs. The real torque is 50 in lbs. I broke a bolt before I started to question the manual. Now I'm in for a bigger job.

Lesson learned!
Kevin

 

[cesully]

my condolences... good luck

an easy job just turned out to be a major head ache. was that a misprint in the manual?

Sully

 

[Ken]

I've been meaning to get an inch-pound torque wrench. :L

 

[rrubel]

Doh! I did that exact same thing myself two days before going to the track. You'd think I would realize what the problem was... on one side, I broke a bolt. ON the other, I broke the valve cover. Fortunately, AutoZone had a set of Edelbrock covers for $35, and fancy-pants bolts for about $10. And those were hand-tighten...

And what Ken says is right - you need an inch-lb wrench because the ft-lb ones aren't accurate at such light settings.
[RICHR]

 

[Edmond]

I have to confess that I never even heard of an inch-pound wrench.

 

[G Winter]

A sugestion to remove the bolt.. find a left hand drill bit a little smaller than the bolt. Center pundh the bolt and slowly drill in reverse. once the drill catches on the bolt it usually turns it out. Make sure drill is small enough not to damage threads .

 

[SSTibet]

You can also drill and tap inside the bolt. Then place another bolt inside the broken one and lock them with a washer. Remove the second bolt and both will come out as one.

Or you can drill a lef hand thread inside the broken bolt and place a left hand screw / bolt inside it and just turn it counter clockwise to make it tight. Both will come out.

 

[RonnieH]

Just my 2 cents worth on torqueing in inch pounds at the low end of the scale. I just rebuilt a motor in one of my jet skis (and broke two bolts while torqueing to 30 inch pounds). Some of the bolts required torqueing to 30 inch pounds. I'll save you the math - that is a little more than 2 ft. pounds. Anyway, when torqueing to such low settings -even 50 inch pounds, you are at the mercy of the torque wrench and the qualilty of the bolts used. The wrench may be accurate, but the bolt quality is such that it won't stand the specified torque. SS bolts - most people think they are the ultimate, but they will snap in half in an instant if overtorqued. If you choose to go the perfectionist route and determine each bolt should be exactly 4.17 ft. lbs., you can do a quick bench check on your torque wrench and maybe save yourself a headache - 1.set to the proper inch pounds. 2.On a flat, stable surface, set the socket stem in the jaws of an adjustable wrench. Wrench handle should be on the table in the direction you are turning 3. Turn the wrench in the direction to tighten and listen for the click or slippage in the wrench. When working in inch pounds, you can get a quick and dirty estimation of whether the wrench is working correctly or not. If the arteries in your neck are bulging and you are attempting to get a better grip on the wrench handle and push harder, you can bet the wrench is not working correctly at the lower settings. For settings as low as 50 inch pounds, I think it safer and are better off to sung the bolts up with a 1/4" drive and forego the perfection of torquing to the equiv. of 4 ft. pounds. If you're interested, Pep Boys sells a fairly good 3/8" inch pounds torque wrench inexpensively.

 

[kevman]

Thanks everyone for the advice and suggestions. I have to work a double shift today, so I will work on the car tomorrow. I will let you know how it comes out.
From now on I'll remember Big bolt=Big torque, Small bolt=small torque.

Kevin

 

[garycr14]

Ditto RonnieH on the bolt quality. There are a lot of bolts made in several countries in Asia, where the quality control is not up to par. Quite simply put, the bolts break at below specified torque ratings. Only put the best available, not worth the cost savings to take a shortcut here.

 

[kevman]

Well the bolt is out. I tried an EZ-out but it was too tight and was afraid of breaking the EZ-out. If you've ever done this you know real sorrow. I had to drill the old bolt out and clean the threads with a tap. I work in die cast machine repair so I do this kind of repair quite often. My RTV is drying as I type and I will drive her tomorrow. Thanks for all the replys and remember to always question the specs in your repair manual.(Don't do like I did)

Kevin

 

[RonnieH]

Thanks to Vettman I. He replied via e-mail and had a couple of the GM stop leak pellets left over. He graciously volunteered to send them to me. I am going to go ahead and flush my system and add the pellets and see what happens or doesn't happen, as the case may be. He mentioned that after the pellets are added, the coolant looks like brown mud. This is exactly how my coolant looks and was causing me some concern. I had my system flushed at the dealer a couple of years ago when I had them change all the belts/hoses. I now suspect they added a couple of the pellets when they did the work and that would explain the color of my coolant. Thanks to all who replied. At this point, I haven't discounted any suggestions. Trying the pellets can't hurt anything. If they work, I am buying some time and maybe prolonging the eventual solution. If they don't work, I'm no worse off and will pull the intake (that will be a winter job while the car is hibernating until spring).