Steering box bolts - Ford Forums

rigidshovel · 08-22-2004, 23:53

hi all....anyone had trouble breaking bolts.....put grade 8 in last time but still broke them.....next step will be to plate the chassis I guess....

BTW.....this is on my 84 F100.....not a 150 I know, but close enough

351w · 09-13-2004, 23:42

no problems breaking bolts here, get yourself a nice pressure regulator and dont run 175 psi of air to you impact gun.
also try putting a little antiseize on your bolts and they wont bind up so tight, so you can remove um a little easier the next time.

rigidshovel · 09-14-2004, 17:48

did them up by hand, but I now run over them every couple of weeks and can always get a bit more on them.....got me stumped

351w · 09-14-2004, 22:06

there's your problem,
you cant keep wrenching a bolt down every week or yes it will keep breaking off.
no matter how hard the grade of bolt you use.
when you wrench down a bolt the specified torque is in relation to the bolt diameter.
for example a 1/2" bolt can be torqued to about 85 ft lbs and dont quote me on that number i am just using that for example.
i can however tell you an exact torque if you tell me the diameter of the bolts you have.
anyway to get back to your problem, you are cranking these bolts down tight and after a week or so the steel starts to stretch and then again you crank on it some more and get a 1/4 turn and then after you do that 2 or 3 times you have the bolt weakened from stretching it.

get yourself a torque wrench and go by the numbers or put thread lock on the bolts and you will know they are not coming out by themselves.

rigidshovel · 09-15-2004, 00:29

only reason I check them every couple of weeks is because it costs too much to put the F100 on the back of a tow truck....

bit more history....snapped them once....put in grade 5....they lasted about a year....snapped them and put in grade 8....they lasted about 3 months.....put in grade 8 again and now check them all the time....but thanx anyway, listed this in another thread and aussieG suggested using a different type of bolt, so I'll be trying that