BTW - A technique on really old rusty bolts on old trucks is repeated applications twice a day for several days will usually get things loose. Lightly tapping the nut and/or bolt after each application to help the PB Blaster/Kroil soak down the threads and do the job.
1970 Explorer Class A on a 1969 Dodge M300 chassis with 318 cu. in. (split year)
1972 Executive Class A on a Dodge M375 chassis with 413 cu. in.
1973 Explorer Class A on a Dodge RM350 (R4) chassis with 318 engine & tranny from 1970 Explorer Class A
regis101 wrote:
Whelp. I'm looking on page 48 of the owners manual and it states that the B300, CB, MB, with 5/8 studs torque at 300-350#.
I searched torque multipliers and found a few user friendly units under one hun bux.
The front is a different rim than the rear duals.
PB Blaster and anti seize is in my arsenal
Whelp. I'm looking on page 48 of the owners manual and it states that the B300, CB, MB, with 5/8 studs torque at 300-350#.
I searched torque multipliers and found a few user friendly units under one hun bux.
The front is a different rim than the rear duals.
PB Blaster and anti seize is in my arsenal
That's 300-350 foot/pounds ... 300-350 pound of force one foot from the stud. Go to two feet and the force you need to exert is 150-175 pounds. Go to three feet and you only need 100-115 pounds of force. (116-2/3 pounds to be precise.) My wife can exert that much force by standing on the end of the wrench. (More if she's really pissed off.)
So, what you really need is a two to three foot long wrench. I use a deep socket and 1/2" drive breaker bar if I don't have an impact wrench handy. (I'm getting older so I sometimes add a four foot pipe.)
If you do use a cheater bar (pipe) slide it over the breaker bar handle all the way to the socket ... sales people often know to look for signs of a cheater when you bring in the breaker bar for warranty replacement.
Another alternative I've seen is welding an impact deep socket to the end of a length of black iron pipe.
And yes. 12" is the standard for torque wrench settings/calibration.
Thanks for the input.
The rig came with a lug wrench and bar as originally equipped. Schweet
Peace. ~RL
Don't do much work these days. so can afford to just use the best one.
Hate to get my hands dirty, these days. ; ^ )
Hoppe
2011 Dodge 1500 C'boy Caddy
2000 Jayco C 28' Ford chassis w V-10 E450
Doghouse 36' or so Trophy Classic TT
rehoppe wrote:
Griff
Don't do much work these days. so can afford to just use the best one.
Hate to get my hands dirty, these days. ; ^ )
Griff
Don't do much work these days. so can afford to just use the best one.
Hate to get my hands dirty, these days. ; ^ )
In general, I agree with "just use the best one." However, I do enough work on a tight budget to want to cut cost where I can. I use whatever gets the job done while balancing results, time, and cost. I refuse to use inferior tools and materials because they're a costly waste of time.
My experience seems to indicate the combination of several applications of PB Blaster followed by one or two applications of Kroil tends to work better than either alone, especially on really stubborn parts.
If these two don't get things loose, judicious application of heat is the next resort.
A lot of the work I do is on irreplaceable parts that are sometimes more than a half century old. I turned down one restoration job where the customer had tried to do things himself. His efforts damaged one of the two parts beyond any reasonable possibility of restoration. I was able to get the other one apart after a week of patience and gave him parts that was as good as new. The last I heard, he gave up on a worldwide search for a replacement and was looking into having a new one cast and machined.
Before we do, I'd like to take a look at electrical tools, focusing on those I use most often for diagnostic work.
Many professional mechanics have a collection of special diagnostic tools just for finding electrical problems. These tools tend to be expensive but mechanics can justify the cost due to the amount of time the tools save them. (Labor can be as much as 80-90% of the cost of finding and fixing electrical problems. Plus, the limited number of mechanics able to diagnose electrical problems drives the hourly labor cost up.)
Over the years, I've collected quite a few of these tools but they spend most of their time in the toolbox because they're mainly used on unusual difficult-to-find problems. (Some -- or all -- of each of my CarQuest paychecks went to buying new special tools I'd run across.)
I even leave the most basic electrical diagnostic tool (my multimeter) in my toolbox because I can often find the problem using other, inexpensive simple tools, like the the wire-and-alligator-clip jumpers I've already mentioned.
Sometimes, you can identify the problem without tools by considering the symptoms. (i.e., the problem appears under certain conditions and disappears when the conditions change.) However, this requires an good understanding of electrical systems and a fair amount of experience.
Usually, I start chasing problems by using a jumper. Initially, I connect one end of the jumper to the battery's negative terminal and the other to ground connection of the component having problems. (The component may have a specific ground/negative terminal or wire or more likely, may rely on mounting screws into the vehicle's metal for a ground … a single supply wire is a good indication of the second kind of grounding.) If the jumper causes the component to start working, or working better, the problem is a faulty ground.
Next, I move the one end of the jumper from the battery's negative terminal to its positive terminal and connect the other end of the jumper to the component's positive/supply wire or terminal. If the component then starts working or working better, the problem is with the component's supply (positive) wire, intermediate connections, and/or switch (if the circuit has a switch.)
Be careful when you have the jumper connected to the battery's positive terminal. The other end is "hot" and will throw sparks if it touches any kind of vehicle ground. (If it tries to weld itself to the ground, yank it loose … if you break the jumper doing so, it's easy to fix or replace.)
If neither of these tests cause an improvement in the component's operation, the component is probably toast.
I like to use 10 or 8 gauge wire for short jumpers because I don't know how much current will be flowing through it. For longer jumpers, I use 16 gauge wire because components at the far end of the vehicle from the battery (e,g,. taillights) usually don't draw that much current, heavier wire is more expensive, and I usually have several 100-foot rolls of 16 gauge, in various colors, in my supply cabinet.
Never leave a jumper connected for long periods. The jumper doesn't have overload protection (fuse or circuit breaker) and could build up heat and catch fire if left unattended for any length of time.
If the jumper starts to get vey warm or the insulation starts to smoke, it's an indication your problem may be bigger than you thought. On the ground side, this indicates a lot of components just found a better ground and, on the supply side, incorrect wiring or a short between wires is causing the wire to supply more components than it was intended to. (Current flowing through wires generates some heat. How much is too hot is a matter of experience.)
In the case of ground problems, I have to decide whether to fix the problem or just run a new, dedicated ground wire. If the problem is only affecting one or a few collocated components, I run a new ground, On the other hand, a lot of affected components throughout the vehicle means I should find and fix the ground problem.
BTW - A faulty ground can cause other lights to come on when they shouldn't. The light that's supposed to come on is finding a better ground through a connection with the other lights. Connecting a jumper will usually cause the extraneous lights to stay off because the jumper serves as a better ground. This tends to happen in taillights and can be especially frustrating because good taillights are crucial. Unfortunately, when encountering this problem, most people tend to focus in the turn signal/four-way flasher/stoplight switches and circuitry while overlooking a possible ground problem.
The time I was helping someone figure out why their oil pressure gauge wouldn't work is an example of how a jumper can help you identify larger ground problems. I suspected the oil pressure sender wasn't getting a good ground so I ran a jumper from the battery's negative terminal to the base of the sender. The oil pressure gauge doesn't use a lot of current so I used a 16 gauge jumper and fired up the engine. Almost immediately, the insulation burned off the jumper and the wire started glowing. A few more feet of burned up wire, connected to various bolts (and a sparkplug), confirmed the engine had a serious ground issue. It wasn't readily evident but close examination of the battery/engine ground (negative) cable revealed the worst I've ever seen on a "working" vehicle. Inside the insulation the wire was badly corroded with lots of broken strands and the connections at both ends were loose and loaded with crud. After we replaced the cable and tighten it well, everything on his vehicle worked better than it had in years.
Everything worked well, except the oil pressure gauge. As it turned out, he'd replaced the sender in an attempt to fix the gauge and had used thread tape to prevent an oil leak. Unfortunately, he had used enough thread tape to effectively insulate the sender from the engine block ground. (Don't use thread tape on any gauge senders … new ones come with adequate sealant on the threads.)
I also use jumpers to test switches by jumping across the switch terminals. If this causes things to start working, you have a faulty switch.
Another inexpensive diagnostic tool is an 1156 lightbulb, typically used in backup lights, and an aftermarket socket. I use this to make sure I'm getting current at the component and find circuit breaks by testing at various place along the circuit. Don't use an LED because it costs more and you may burn out a few bulbs while testing. Also, LEDs tend to work or not work while the intensity of an incandescent bulb can tell you things about the circuit's condition.
A very large portion of electrical issues are caused by fairly simple problems so all you really need is some wire, a couple alligator clips, several 1156 bulbs and a socket. (The nice thing is these, along with a few supplies, allow you to find and fix most problems you encounter when away from your shop.) If you can't find the problem with these inexpensive tools, you need to turn to a multimeter, especially if you find yourself doing a lot of electrical diagnostics.
In this case, invest in a good quality multimeter and compare it's readings to another meter. I have a fairly expensive, reasonably accurate Clarke meter, with functions I've never used, that my wife and kids gave me for Christmas years ago.
Cheap and secondhand meters often create more problems than they help solve. Recently, my son and I were chasing electrical issues on my van at the Fort Wainwright Auto Skill Center. My multimeter was at home, thirty miles away, so we were using the secondhand meter my son had in his toolbar. The meter was giving confusing reading including low voltage off a known-good battery that had just come off a charger. We checked out the center's multimeter, which showed the battery was fully charged at around 14 volts. My son's meter was showing around 10 volts from the same battery, meaning his meter was FUBAR. (This was a surprise to him because it was a good quality military surplus meter that he thought was working just fine.)
Obviously, the best, most expensive, specialized diagnostic tools won't do you any good if you don't know how to use them and don't understand what they're telling you. On the other hand, a few simple inexpensive tools are all you need in most cases if you have a reasonably good understanding of your vehicle's electrical circuits and components. Don't let that stop you from wading in. I have a very good understanding of electrical circuits and components -- I figured out how a flashlight works and wired up a crude circuit to confirm my theory in grade school. In spite of fifty years of on-and-off experience, I still frequently get frustrated while trying to find and fix electrical problems.
As a final note, you may have noticed I've avoided mentioning electronic -- as opposed to electrical -- circuits and components. That's because electrical circuits and components are relatively simple while electronics adds an order of magnitude in complexity. When it comes to electronic problems, I rely on repair manuals for diagnostic procedures to establish where the problem is. Then, I take a "black box" approach, replacing instead of trying fix whatever's wrong.
Which would you guys rather have in todays economy, a big engine, of the 440, 413 family, or a smaller 318, 360 engine?
Will I really get any better fuel economy from the smaller engines, or will they be forced to work harder and get about the same?
Downsizing ">
'73 Concord 20' Class A w/Dodge 440 - see profile for photo
1975 American Clipper RV with Dodge 360 (photo in profile)
1998 American Clipper Fold n Roll Folding Trailer
Both born in Morgan Hill, CA to Irv Perch (Daddy of the Aristocrat trailers)
The 360 class C I had prior to my 440 class A was a total dog. And no better gas mileage (same overall length).