One is Never Too Old to Learn

[terry and jo]

Following the recommendations of DRV's owner's manual for our Mobile Suites in keeping the lug nuts as a certain ft/lb, I broke down recently and purchased my first EVER torque wrench. Today, I crawled under the extended slides to check each and every one of the lug nuts and to apply some grease to the grease fittings on the suspension.

Now, I've been involved with agriculture, agribusiness, trucking and just general use of cars and trucks for a lot of years. At 65, I know I am always learning new things. In the past, I've just hunkered down and "turned the crank" when tightening lug nut and stopped when I heard a pop or really felt that it was tight enough that I couldn't tighten it any more.

I guess I figured that the small frame that I have wouldn't be able to over-tighten them. Anyway, figuring that 150 ft/lbs of torque would require quite a bit of "oomph", I went to tighten the first one. To my real surprise, it didn't take that much "extra" pressure to get the wrench to "click" at 150. I guess part of that is the 2 foot long handle of the wrench.

Now, I'm wondering whether there are other "fasteners" on a fifth wheel that call for a certain torque setting. Looks like I get to go to researching again.

Terry