What did you do to your Ranger today? (Part Deux!)

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Random idle thought… maybe someone can chime in on this…

Back when I replaced the control arms on my green Ranger, I had to torque the bolts where the lower arms mount to the frame and they said to torque those at ride height, which at the time I did. Now that it’s getting lowered, should I back those bolts off and re-tighten at the new ride height? Never gave it a thought till now and it sounds logical that I should. Those suck to torque without being on a 4-post lift, btw.

 

[sgtsandman]

I got into it a bit with one of the local tire shops awhile back. I took bare rims in the bed of my truck and told them to mount the new tires and put them back in the bed. They wanted to pull the truck in the shop. Fine. Little bit later truck comes out with the new rims and tires on. That’s not what I asked them to do, but whatever. Not long after I lost two or three studs on one back wheel. Came off going down the road. I figured well, it is kinda old so I got new studs for the back axle and figured I’d just replace them all. I had a 3’ cheater pipe on a 24” breaker bar and had to JUMP on the cheater pipe to break them free. My air impact (650 ft/lbs) wouldn’t budge them, and this was prior to my Milwaukee battery impacts.

I did the rear axle and went back to the tire shop and pitched a fit, told them I wanted the fronts loosened and re-torqued to spec. They argued claiming they always use a torque wrench. I told them they were full of shit. I specifically told them not to put the rims and tires on the truck and they did it anyway. I also said when I have to jump on a cheater pipe on a breaker bar, there is no F@#$&*G way it’s torqued to 95 ft/lbs and some dick ugga-dugga’d the shit out of them. I told them they were lucky I wasn’t demanding the new wheel studs and lug nuts out of them too.

I have been guilty in the past of hammering lug nuts down with an impact, but after a couple issues with wheels coming loose and finding that it’s more inconsistent than I thought, I’ll run them down with the impact, but I hand tighten with a breaker bar. I’m too lazy to fetch the torque wrench all the time, but I think I have a pretty good feel for what 95-100 ft/lbs feels like on a breaker bar which is below the maximum force I can generate by hand.

I think all the shops do that now. People are lazy and time is money. I always viewed the torque stick defense as a load of garbage. Sure they may have them but I doubt very much they get used since no matter where I go, I have to use a large breaker bar to break them loose and torque them to spec.

 

[sgtsandman]

Random idle thought… maybe someone can chime in on this…

Back when I replaced the control arms on my green Ranger, I had to torque the bolts where the lower arms mount to the frame and they said to torque those at ride height, which at the time I did. Now that it’s getting lowered, should I back those bolts off and re-tighten at the new ride height? Never gave it a thought till now and it sounds logical that I should. Those suck to torque without being on a 4-post lift, btw.

It can’t hurt. The way they are now, there is going to be some resistance to the new level. I’m not sure if it’s absolutely necessary. It depends on how “done right” you want to be.

 

[Roert42]

“Just keep hitting it with that impact until it stops moving, you don’t want that f***n thing coming loose while your driving do ya?”


That’s how my father taught me to tighten lug nuts. He was a flat rate mechanic if you couldn’t guess.

 

[bobbywalter]

All my junk.....


Ugly and Homily.


Simple brake adjustments easy peasy I was sure.......that now may end up getting fresh line...and new shoes.... bummer..

Got an oem tail pipe for the chop.....bob destroyed it at the badlands...so it leaks mid ship and gases ya out .....hoping to get it on before I leave....

Need to do valve cover gaskets too on the fresher to me engine.. actually the driver's side cover is trash....and hopefully that is all. It's running on the wrong pcm but it's livable for now.

Still unsure of I am taking it to pa....

Hopping in the ranger and heading out to fowlerville to a party....so the exhaust won't get done today. Stops good though.

 

[Rick W]

I think all the shops do that now. People are lazy and time is money. I always viewed the torque stick defense as a load of garbage. Sure they may have them but I doubt very much they get used since no matter where I go, I have to use a large breaker bar to break them loose and torque them to spec.

In my experience, 99% of the people doing any job are very good people, but training has gone to hell. The younger kids think they know it all from the Internet, and a lot of the shop owners think of them as disposable. A different world than when I grew up. But if you hold out your hand, and provide a little friendly advice, my experience is that the younger folks are sponges, and suck it all up, usually with a smile and a thank you.

And an engineering thought on torquing bolts. Very rarely is the bolt itself actually carrying the load across it. The bolt is pushing the two pieces together, and the friction between the two is what keeps them in place. Mechanical engineering, 101.

You may not believe it, but every piece of “that,” whatever “that” is, is designed with flex, motion, and catastrophic failure in the equation. More specifically, hard to believe, the bolts actually bend, but it’s a teeny amount you could never see. A lot of the residual and ongoing strength is from not exceeding the design. The design that determines the torque is based on having the unit tight enough to hold everything together safely, but far below the failure point of the nut or bolt. Over tightening increases the point of failure dramatically.

Aluminum and mag wheels are particularly susceptible to deformation, and fatigue around the bolt holes, if they are constantly over torqued.

I’ve also used wheel spacers on some of my custom projects. The wheel spacers typically have a torque setting 10 or 20 pounds higher than the wheel nut torque spec. I always clean the iron/steel surfaces at least with a wire brush, sometimes with some sandpaper, I torque the wheel spacers down in steps, and I use red thread lock on the spacer bolts, and I also smear a little on the back of the wheel adapter. I let that sit overnight, and then I torque the wheels to the right torque setting. I had a couple of adventures when I was younger, but I’ve been doing it this way for probably 20 years, and never ever had any issue whatsoever.

I have a couple little cheap 3/8 drive, 20 V impact wrenches. If I have to, I loosen my bolts with a breaker bar, but then spin them off for convenience. When I put them back on, I spin them down with the torque wrench, but just till they’re snug. Then I almost universally use a half inch drive torque wrench to get them in the right place. When I had heavy duty trailers, and on my F250, I even tighten the Lug nuts in steps. If I remember, the F250 requires 140 foot pounds. I’ll tighten them to 100, then 120, and then 140, always crisscrossing across the pattern.

I don’t mean to sound like a know it all, just trying to help folks who are new at it.

Hope it helps

BTW, I have a a lot of knowledge on trailer, couplers too…

 

[Rick W]

All my junk.....


Ugly and Homily.


Simple brake adjustments easy peasy I was sure.......that now may end up getting fresh line...and new shoes.... bummer..

Got an oem tail pipe for the chop.....bob destroyed it at the badlands...so it leaks mid ship and gases ya out .....hoping to get it on before I leave....

Need to do valve cover gaskets too on the fresher to me engine.. actually the driver's side cover is trash....and hopefully that is all. It's running on the wrong pcm but it's livable for now.

Still unsure of I am taking it to pa....








View attachment 95153



Hopping in the ranger and heading out to fowlerville to a party....so the exhaust won't get done today. Stops good though.

I’m not much of a trail rider. Question: when you change your oil and you do your regular preventative maintenance, do you swap the dirt out too?

 

[Curious Hound]

I’m not much of a trail rider. Question: when you change your oil and you do your regular preventative maintenance, do you swap the dirt out too?

Dirt gets swapped, discarded, added to, etc. In every trail ride. I probably still have remnants from the trail ride in Ohio a few years ago. Dirt is an ever changing story of where you've been and what you've done.

 

[Curious Hound]

In my experience, 99% of the people doing any job are very good people, but training has gone to hell. The younger kids think they know it all from the Internet, and a lot of the shop owners think of them as disposable. A different world than when I grew up. But if you hold out your hand, and provide a little friendly advice, my experience is that the younger folks are sponges, and suck it all up, usually with a smile and a thank you.

And an engineering thought on torquing bolts. Very rarely is the bolt itself actually carrying the load across it. The bolt is pushing the two pieces together, and the friction between the two is what keeps them in place. Mechanical engineering, 101.

You may not believe it, but every piece of “that,” whatever “that” is, is designed with flex, motion, and catastrophic failure in the equation. More specifically, hard to believe, the bolts actually bend, but it’s a teeny amount you could never see. A lot of the residual and ongoing strength is from not exceeding the design. The design that determines the torque is based on having the unit tight enough to hold everything together safely, but far below the failure point of the nut or bolt. Over tightening increases the point of failure dramatically.

Aluminum and mag wheels are particularly susceptible to deformation, and fatigue around the bolt holes, if they are constantly over torqued.

I’ve also used wheel spacers on some of my custom projects. The wheel spacers typically have a torque setting 10 or 20 pounds higher than the wheel nut torque spec. I always clean the iron/steel surfaces at least with a wire brush, sometimes with some sandpaper, I torque the wheel spacers down in steps, and I use red thread lock on the spacer bolts, and I also smear a little on the back of the wheel adapter. I let that sit overnight, and then I torque the wheels to the right torque setting. I had a couple of adventures when I was younger, but I’ve been doing it this way for probably 20 years, and never ever had any issue whatsoever.

I have a couple little cheap 3/8 drive, 20 V impact wrenches. If I have to, I loosen my bolts with a breaker bar, but then spin them off for convenience. When I put them back on, I spin them down with the torque wrench, but just till they’re snug. Then I almost universally use a half inch drive torque wrench to get them in the right place. When I had heavy duty trailers, and on my F250, I even tighten the Lug nuts in steps. If I remember, the F250 requires 140 foot pounds. I’ll tighten them to 100, then 120, and then 140, always crisscrossing across the pattern.

I don’t mean to sound like a know it all, just trying to help folks who are new at it.

Hope it helps

BTW, I have a a lot of knowledge on trailer, couplers too…

Speaking of torque... I stripped out the mounting hole for one of the pulleys on the tensioner in my F250 today. 8mm bolt screwed into an aluminum casting. Fortunately, there was enough metal around it that I could drill and tap it to M10. Fixed with no new money spent.

 

[racsan]

Used the taildate as a workbench until it started to rain . Then I took the escape tires & 2” spacers off of the back axle & went back to the 225/70/15’s . It really didnt like towing a trailer loaded with wood with those bigger 235/70/16’s on. Will get back to the chicken house once the rain stops.

 

[Bill]

Nothing. But, I might go outside to defend it from the hellfire heatwave and give it a bath while it's wet.

 

[sgtsandman]

In my experience, 99% of the people doing any job are very good people, but training has gone to hell. The younger kids think they know it all from the Internet, and a lot of the shop owners think of them as disposable. A different world than when I grew up. But if you hold out your hand, and provide a little friendly advice, my experience is that the younger folks are sponges, and suck it all up, usually with a smile and a thank you.

And an engineering thought on torquing bolts. Very rarely is the bolt itself actually carrying the load across it. The bolt is pushing the two pieces together, and the friction between the two is what keeps them in place. Mechanical engineering, 101.

You may not believe it, but every piece of “that,” whatever “that” is, is designed with flex, motion, and catastrophic failure in the equation. More specifically, hard to believe, the bolts actually bend, but it’s a teeny amount you could never see. A lot of the residual and ongoing strength is from not exceeding the design. The design that determines the torque is based on having the unit tight enough to hold everything together safely, but far below the failure point of the nut or bolt. Over tightening increases the point of failure dramatically.

Aluminum and mag wheels are particularly susceptible to deformation, and fatigue around the bolt holes, if they are constantly over torqued.

I’ve also used wheel spacers on some of my custom projects. The wheel spacers typically have a torque setting 10 or 20 pounds higher than the wheel nut torque spec. I always clean the iron/steel surfaces at least with a wire brush, sometimes with some sandpaper, I torque the wheel spacers down in steps, and I use red thread lock on the spacer bolts, and I also smear a little on the back of the wheel adapter. I let that sit overnight, and then I torque the wheels to the right torque setting. I had a couple of adventures when I was younger, but I’ve been doing it this way for probably 20 years, and never ever had any issue whatsoever.

I have a couple little cheap 3/8 drive, 20 V impact wrenches. If I have to, I loosen my bolts with a breaker bar, but then spin them off for convenience. When I put them back on, I spin them down with the torque wrench, but just till they’re snug. Then I almost universally use a half inch drive torque wrench to get them in the right place. When I had heavy duty trailers, and on my F250, I even tighten the Lug nuts in steps. If I remember, the F250 requires 140 foot pounds. I’ll tighten them to 100, then 120, and then 140, always crisscrossing across the pattern.

I don’t mean to sound like a know it all, just trying to help folks who are new at it.

Hope it helps

BTW, I have a a lot of knowledge on trailer, couplers too…

At one of the local tire shops, I spent time with the owner and a couple of their workers on the subject of just running the lug nuts home and used a torque wrench to prove my point and showed them that I had to use a long breaker bar to break the lug nuts loose because the factory tire iron and most cross irons just don't have the length needed for me, let alone my girlfriend or her daughter to break the lug nuts loose. They listened to me patiently and then proceeded to continue running the lug nuts home with a impact gun like they did before.

So, now all of my vehicles have the longest 1/2" breaker bar I can find with the needed socket because of it. I do try to take steps after I know a vehicle has been at a shop to check the lug nuts but I can't always get to it right away. And since I still deploy, I may not be available to run over and "save the day". Her father and son lives 2 hours away. She needs the ability and equipment to do it herself.

 

[Rick W]

Used the taildate as a workbench until it started to rain . Then I took the escape tires & 2” spacers off of the back axle & went back to the 225/70/15’s . It really didnt like towing a trailer loaded with wood with those bigger 235/70/16’s on. Will get back to the chicken house once the rain stops.

Does your wife let you keep the taildate in the house?

 

[Lefty]

I swapped out the Old Ranger front sway bar for one from an Explorer. I'm hoping to improve the handling.

 

[Bill]

I didn't get around to washing the Ranger because I drove it to the Costco food court for a hotdog, then another hot dog, then a strawberry sundae.

Now I feel fat.