Torque info?

[wore out]

(NOT my photo, shamelessly STOLEN from somewhere in the depths of the .net.)

 

[Hayfarmer]

Apparenty not that tight

 

[timcasbolt]

Looks like the work of Jiffy Lube.

 

[caterpillar guy]

Snug and just a wee bit more. Works fine for me. Going by feel on things like that since I was a kid.

 

[T.R.K.]

Lefty loosey. Rightey tightey. I wonder if they turned the wrench the wrong way.

There has to be a back story on that one for sure.

 

[Muir hill 101]

I worked fleet maintenance in another life and there
was a few times that I needed a 3 foot Cheater on a 1/2
inch breaker bar and a fair bit of muscle to get a drain
plug out

 

[Mule Meat]

90% of all cars and trucks only call for oil plugs to be torqued from 18 to 23 ft lb.

Majority of people never replace the plugs washer or rubber seal with each oil change or two. So over time they need to tighten the plug tighter to get it to seal. Then one of three things are going to happen. Strip the bolt, pull the threads from the pan or crack the pan trying to remove the plug.

 

[Fred Werring]

My son had over tightened the drain plug on his car on the previous oil change, needed a breaker bar to get it loose.

So when he was ready to put the plug back in, I handed him a torque wrench set to the correct ft/lbs so he could see just how little it took to tighten it.

My fault I guess, he had never seen me use a torque wrench on a drain plug.

Luckily nothing was damaged, all is well.

 

[Mule Meat]

Burly man truck..

 

[John Garner]

Another half turn should do it.

 

[Caryc]

The guys who did that could be like Mike Rowe on "Dirty Jobs". Any time a bolt or nut is upside down like a drain plug he always tries to turn it the wrong way. It never fails. You'd think he would learn! Why can't people like that learn that upside down or right side up, you still loosen by turning it counter clockwise.

Unless of course you're dealing with a left hand thread.

 

[the tractor vet]

Yup. almost btdt. Years back the War Dept was racking up the miles like no tomorrow when she had three county's to cover every week . Weather was bad i had no time she had no tile so one Thursday evening i had her stop at the local Goat store on her way home as she was going past anyway for and oil change . Every thing was in the car even a Mopar oil filter as i would buy them by the case due to getting a huge price break when they had dealer special orders on stuff like that and they cost me just 10% over there cost or 40-60% off list . It did not take her long to rack up 3500 more miles and due for another change and she gave me and hour to do it till she had to run again . So i run out and grab all i need and the first thing i found was the filter was hardly on and only finger tight , then came the drain plug i could NOT get it to move with my wrench , ok out comes the 3/8th breaker bar , still no joy so we move up to my long half inch ratchet and still could not budge it , next up was my long 1/2 breaker bar then came my your going to move or twist off cheater pipe and now the pan is flexing big time . I did put a wrinkle in the pan before it broke loose i was NOT happy and out came the cell phone and some donkey chewen with the service manager who i have known for eons After our little talk he was now in need of a new lube tech . Had that fliter come off while the War Dept was driving it would have been and engine job on them and i would have been real unhappy had that happened some late night coming home from one of her meeting way down in God's country where there is NO cell phone service and once the sun goes down ya don't find many on them back roads.

 

[Caryc]

Never really had much trouble removing drain plugs but I would try one of my impact guns before using a 3 or 4 foot pipe. Believe it or not, I used that smaller impact to remove a rusted screw from the back of a key switch on my 8N. It had a rather questionable screw slot. Of course I had the switch out since I was replacing it. I believe in impact guns.

Also used that smaller one the other day when replacing the gas tank on a Ryobi weed whacker. They must have used some kind of thread locker on those torx screws. That little gun had them out with just a slight press of the trigger.

This post was edited by Caryc on 04/14/2023 at 12:17 pm.