Can someone tell me what the rear upper and lower controls arms should be torqued too on my 1970 GS Skylark ??
I have specs for 71, can't be too far off: 1) Rear upper arm forward position: 70-90ft/lbs (at the nut) 2) Rear upper arm aft position: 70-90ft/lbs (at the nut) 3) Rear lower arm forward position: 70-90ft/lbs (at the nut) 4) Rear lower arm aft position: 70-90 ft/lbs (at the nut) If you tighten with the bolts instead of the nuts, they say go 95-125ft/lbs but that seems like a lot to me. later Tim
also , car needs to be in it normal rest position, that is resting fully on the suspension, before tightening the nuts/bolts. tim; would the extra torque for tightening via the bolts be because of the extra length that the torque is applied through ? i too questioned the amount of extra torque required as in the manula, when i replaced my suspension.
In a way yes, its not really the extra length but the friction created by it. In fact, these bolts use locknuts and generally speaking the proper way to tighten these is to get rundown torque, which is the torque reading while running the locknut down on the threads, then ADD that to the torque specified to get the proper clamping force. That is aviation practise, however, and I seriously doubt GM line workers would do that therefore I seriously doubt that GM designed it like that. I'm sure the rundown would be in the spec already. They do give a pretty big tolerance, even more so wihen using the bolts. Turning the nuts instead of the bolts is always prefered, due to the fact you can score the bolt, the torque reading is inaccurate, close tolerance bolts will have metal to metal galling, and again in aviation, some bolts are installed with wet primer to seal them against corrosion..turning them upsets the primer protection (most bolts in aviaiton are very specific as to shank length, unlike auto uses). Also, bolts don't usually have washers under the heads, but the washers do, which prevetns damage to the part being bolted together. Short and sweet, torque the nuts if at all possible. Good call on having the weight of the car on there before torquing, I assumed that was a given, but I shouldn't do that. later Tim
