more crank bolt....

[Al Powell]

Ameer Antar <antar at comcast.net> said:
>
> I'm not sure why I bother, but shouldn't the torque actually be a lot more
than that? If you use the tool and you're putting 258 ft-lbs on the
t-wrench, then for simplifiying the numbers you can assume the t-wrench is
exactly 1-foot and you're putting 258 lbs at the end of it. (You could make
the t-wrench 30 inches, but it's the same thing, you just need a different
weight to match the 158 ft-lbs). So then you are also adding another foot of
extension, so the new torque should be something like 258 lbs * 2 ft = 516
ft-lbs. Torque is simply the weight applied to the bar or wrench times the
distance from the bolt center to the point where you apply the weight. I
doubt you'd need to torque it that high to be safe, but it seems like that's
what Audi wanted you to do.

> -Ameer

I think Ameer is missing the point and confusing his math. And this is
really scary to me, as I am never the first to grasp math, but.......

In the first and mostest basic place, WHO CARES whether you're a few pounds
off??? As  explained in the first post, it simply doesn't matter because you
have considerable margin for error with no impact on the outcome. You're
thinking too much and making it too much work. Audi is terminally anal, and
we already know that....so we all learn to disregard their instructions at
times that make sense to us.

Second, the math is simple enough even for me....

Torque = force x distance
Example:
T1 = F1 x L1 = 10 lbs x 2 ft = 20 ftlbs
T2 = F2 x L2 = 20 lbs x 1 ft = 20 ftlbs
Therefore, T1 = T2
Therefore, 85 pounds at 4 feet = 340 pounds at 1 foot.
And as I said earlier, 340 pounds = close enough!!!!!!!!!!!

Since the desired torque on the bolt is around 350 bs/ft, get the four foot
pipe, slide it over the breaker bar, apply a good grunt worth of effort to
tighten the bolt, and unless you're either relatively weak or a weightlifter
who bench presses extraordinary weight, you're going to be in the right
range. After that, just drop it - you're done.

In the third place, I don't really care whether Audi wanted me to do, nor
whether they would get their panties in a wad if I was off by 10 lbs/ft when
I tighten the bolt. As long as I get the bolt torqued close enough to stay
put and do its job, the rest is immaterial.

************************************
Al Powell
apowell at gocougs.wsu.edu
1958 Fiat 1200 Transformabile Spyder
1983 Datsun 280ZX Turbo
1993 Audi 90Q
1997 Chebby Blazer
1999 Chebby Blazer
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