This story is nuts.

@user-fx4qz8pt3w

3 жыл бұрын

Clever

@duanebuck193

3 жыл бұрын

I'm wondering if that's going to be this guys new nickname?

@j0hnnykn0xv1lle

3 жыл бұрын

@@duanebuck193 yeah "Numbnuts" :)

@duanebuck193

3 жыл бұрын

@@j0hnnykn0xv1lle That, Loosenut or Torquenut :-)

@jgren4048

3 жыл бұрын

Can we just appreciate for a moment that this person worked on 40-thousand vehicles in a single week?

When I worked at Harley Davidson in York, Pa. We used "torque guns" when assembling various components. These are set to whatever torque is required for the process. It is common to have more than one of these at an assembly station. I suspect he was using the wrong gun.

@richardbenjamin8535

3 жыл бұрын

does that mean he ended up shooting himself in the foot?

@jfan4reva

3 жыл бұрын

@@DontCryAboutIt "You use the green one on these bolts, and the red one on those bolts." (Confused color blind noises.)

@82ndAbnVet

3 жыл бұрын

@@DontCryAboutIt they usually had a different size socket on them. Same sized bolts were almost always torque the same. They also had colored tape on the guns. He probably put the wrong sockets on the guns, which means something else in that area is probably over torques.

@538wireman

3 жыл бұрын

Gotta remember, Inch-lbs., Lbs.-Inch & Foot-lbs., Lbs. - Foot are 2 very different measurements. 👍😇✌

@mandolinic

3 жыл бұрын

@@538wireman Don't you mean Newton-Metres?

Being an auto worker I can probably guess what happened. The person running that operation took a weeks vacation. The replacement worker got a rushed explanation of the job. The station had multiple same size nuts that needed tightening and 2 automatic torque wrenches. One for that special torque nut and one for all the others nuts. The replacement worker probably used the general use torque wrench for all the nuts thinking the other was just a backup wrench. It's something like that.

@michaelminnick2516

3 жыл бұрын

Yep. I’ve worked in a car assembly plant and it’s what I thought of too.

I have found that the major problem with most cars is the nut behind the wheel. At least that's the case with mine.

@dougjones9493

3 жыл бұрын

Usually it's the loose nut behind the wheel

One guy caused a Major Recall where I work. We call him "The Six Million Dollar Man" still, around 20 years later...

@watomb

3 жыл бұрын

That’s funny

@jfan4reva

3 жыл бұрын

@@watomb That's amazing if you're still calling him that AT WORK.

@Magical_Thinking

3 жыл бұрын

Just when we think that our particular job doesn’t make a difference!

@jimnotter6046

3 жыл бұрын

There is a school of thought that when someone makes a mistake, and gets called on it, he may NEVER make that mistake again. If you fire him, the new guy may make the same mistake. And who hasn't made a mistake (that he never made again)?

@hecatommyriagon655

3 жыл бұрын

@@jimnotter6046: I agree! I work in tech and make mistakes on a regular basis. However, I tend to learn from my mistakes and try not to repeat them. Because when I make a mistake, i write a report and publish a document, stating what went wrong and why. So that when I'm to do one of these tasks that are repeated once a year or even rarer, there is a write-up to follow. Sometimes a patch or changes in the environment, will make new problems occur, but that's then added to the write-up. Anyways - long story made short: "Those who never make mistakes, never get anything done!"

As a guy who is the only 1 of 4 people who is certified to do my job and the only one that does it full time and it’s very important I can tell you without a doubt nobody notices until you quit, threaten to quit, or go on vacation

“Properly torqued” is such a compelling term. Seems like it could be adapted to many situations. “We started drinking at lunch, and by 2 we were properly torqued.” Or: “After an hour at the DMV, I felt properly torqued.” Perhaps: “Nothing like a Chiro session to leave me properly torqued.”

@DblIre

3 жыл бұрын

That comment really torques me off.

@markstevens1729

3 жыл бұрын

@@DblIre ah, what we’d call a low-torque nut.

@dpwaaw

3 жыл бұрын

I was at a night club and "properly torqued"?

@JasonW.

3 жыл бұрын

This comment made me think of a moment.

@georgemaragos2378

3 жыл бұрын

You can crossthread and jamb a nut bolt to the correct torque, it wont do it any good long term

Regarding the torque wrench, I work in an assembly plant for cars and they are all electric. Basically its a impact gun with a meter on it pull the trigger and the gun auto shuts off all controlled by a wireless control computer

@and4all706

3 жыл бұрын

The wrench probably was not calibrated.

I always keep a bottle of Jack in the trunk too. Or did he say bottle jack?

@user-fx4qz8pt3w

3 жыл бұрын

One of my coworkers told me he was having troubles with Jack and Coke, didn't feel well the next day. Eliminated the Coke and all was good.

@geneticdisorder1900

3 жыл бұрын

@@user-fx4qz8pt3w cheers

@geneticdisorder1900

3 жыл бұрын

Cheers

@user-fx4qz8pt3w

3 жыл бұрын

@@geneticdisorder1900 cheers to you as well!

@peterrivney552

3 жыл бұрын

Yep it was a bottle of Jack nothing but the best ...

Hey Steve A little bit of info to clear up The guy was given a list of items to tighten when the vehicle came to his station He may or may not have been given the full list of items to tighten..... That is why the recall was enacted He was asked to perform his duties in front of assembly line overwatch and missed performing that particular item, so a notice went out as a precautionary measure Hope that clears up any questions We love your show and thanks for spreading the word

383 is also a good number for stroked Chevy small blocks.

This sounds like a problem that was identified at the factory rather than as a result of cars being taken back to dealerships. I would guess that someone saw him doing it wrong and they went and found all of the cars that he had worked on that week.

@keithcurtis6671

3 жыл бұрын

Exactly these vehicles are too recently made to have failed in a customer's hands. It was likely found by a QA audit of production techniques. The worker was probably new to the job, had been trained and signed off on the procedure and then a follow up audit done after a week on the line.

@and4all706

3 жыл бұрын

@@keithcurtis6671 it probably was not calibrated. If he used one torque wrench correctly, but not another he would have to be really lame. The technique he failed to do correctly may have been to have it calibrated. It would be easy to tell if they track the wrench he used all day. Sounds like a quality inspector who wants to be a gestapo (sp) agent.

@absalomdraconis

3 жыл бұрын

@@and4all706 : It was mentioned elsewhere that he might have had two wrenches, each with a preset torque, and instead of swapping wrenches he just swapped sockets.

We went on the tour of the Saturn plant in Tennessee in 2004. My husband was amazed that at the beginning of assembly, they assigned and fitted all the body panels to one car. As things progressed, those same exact parts would be sent separately to various parts of the plant for painting and other procedures, then eventually all were brought back to be put on the same car. My husband thought their system for tracking the parts must have been really great. Relevant to this particular recall: Not long after getting his license, my son was driving our Saturn down the I-5 in the San Joaquin Valley (middle of nowhere) on Memorial Day weekend (when mechanics are on vacation). He needed a break, so took one of our favorite exits, but as he downshifted, something broke and he couldn't shift! We switched seats, and using some careful technique with the clutch, I managed to nurse it along in second gear to a truck stop. Well, they wouldn't deign to work on 4-wheelers. But they suggested a gas station a few miles away. So we limped over there with emergency flashers on. The mechanic was off, but eventually showed up to help us. The connection from the cable to the stick had broken. He jury rigged something, and we gingerly drove the hundreds of miles home without incident. So I sympathize with any drivers who may have experienced this type of failure!

Actually, it wasn't "one person" who caused it - it was actually a management/training issue. You want to assign blame, then you have to start climbing the management ladder to find out who created the training/supervision environment that allowed such a basic error to occur and be repeated.

@JasonW.

3 жыл бұрын

You are forgetting Blame 101 in business school: Shit from Shinola rolls downhill, no matter how polished the turd.

@thegorgon7063

3 жыл бұрын

As it's a Japanese company they'll hopefully use it as a learning opportunity and they'll make sure it can't happen again - poka-yoke as they call it.

@nolongeramused8135

3 жыл бұрын

@@thegorgon7063 I worked for a Japanese company for 20 years - culturally, their management blind spots, resistance to change, and "we've always done it this way" mentality are just as bad, if not worse, than you'd find anyplace else. They'll go barely 1 step into root cause analysis, blame a supervisor for everything, and then move on.

@NQTOD

3 жыл бұрын

It actually was “one person” who caused it I work at this facility and you have to go out of your way lazy to make this “mistake” Everyone knows what he did and how he did it.

@nolongeramused8135

3 жыл бұрын

@@NQTOD You're missing the bigger QA picture - that person was ALLOWED to be lazy.

Wheel lug nut torque is primarily required to prevent distortion to the cast iron rotors and loosening while driving . If lug nuts are improperly torqued the rotors can warp and cause vibration when braking.

@doug2060

3 жыл бұрын

I cringed when he was talking about that. Modern cars are not as forgiving as old cars. Manufacturers use the smallest and weakest components they can get away with these days. I see mini vans and SUV's all the time with tiny rotors, constantly needing replaced even when torqued properly.

@Wehra96

2 жыл бұрын

@@doug2060 not sure if it's common in the US but here most people don't really change wheels at home anymore, because of winter season people get their wheels/tires inspected and torqued at shops that store the winter/summer set. This is even more true for people with newer cars and annoyingly more and more cars don't even come with a lug wrench and spare anymore just a janky tire repair kit.

This is an answer to a question I asked Braxton Nelson multiple possible reasons. Most usually have to do with the fact that you want a good preload in the fastener to more effectively handle the working load, especially if it varies cyclically like you normally see in solidly attached rotating assemblies like wheels & pretty much everything in an engine, or non rotating assemblies like you'd see in a crane, pressure vessel/piping applications, etc. Threaded fasteners are basically a solid spring in tension & the preload is the deflection of that spring, which is a direct function of the clamp force & effective diameter of the screw & the clamp force is your initial clamp load. So your desired initial clamp load & in service loading should dictate your choice of screw size to get the desired preload. So while the same clamp force is usually easily developed by a larger screw, it might not provide sufficient preload. Now, it's not just about clamp load & elongation. Material properties & geometry also play a big role b/c what you're really after is the relationship of the stiffness of joint materials & the stiffness of the bolt. A completed joint can viewed as a system of rigidly attached springs that deflect in tandem, usually with the bolt in tension & the material in compression & b/c of that the system is statically indeterminate. I.e., you can't work out the forces using the forces alone like you could in, say, a truss, shaft, point load, or something similar so you need add another relationship to solve for what's going on. In this case you throw in Hookes law, which defines the relationship between force & elastic deformation/deflection (temp also plays a role due to thermal expansion but let's leave that out). So what you end up with is a couple (or more) equations that contain the forces involved & the stiffness of the bolt & joint which need to be solved simultaneously. All that is to say when you when you load the joint that load gets taken up by both the bolt & the joint, and how that load gets distributed is governed by the stiffness of each component. If everything remains in contact you have two springs that have deflected the same exact amount & Hooke's law states force is equal to deflection times stiffness, so the stiffer part takes a larger share of the load. What we get out of that is that we want a joint where the clamped parts are really stiff & the bolt, not so much, b/c if this can be achieved the lions share of any increased load goes towards "uncompressing" the joint while a much lesser share goes into the bolt. When separation occurs any additional load goes straight through the bolt which usually doesn't end well. And all of that to say if the underlying geometry of a bolt pattern varies, you may need to vary the bolt size to both get the desired clamp force & to maintain the preload characteristics to retain desired joint performance. Another reason could packaging. There might not be enough clearance for a wrench with a larger bolt, or it might be too difficult to get the required torque to develop the clamp force needed when using a larger bolt b/c as bolt size increases so does the torque required to hit a certain clamp force. Another reason would be that the mating part has geometry dictating a maximum hole size. In general, when dealing with threading holes, be it a nut or a tapped hole in a part or whatever, you want a minimum thread depth of 1.5 x the diameter of the hole to develop max strength. Material is obviously a factor here as well as you generally increase thread depth with softer materials so you choose a smaller screw to get more thread engagement. There can be manufacturing issues as well. It's virtually impossible to thread a blind hole to full depth using a tap. You either need to run a second (and maybe third) bottoming tap or use a thread mill but both options take up more time & a spot in the tool changer & you can only go so small with a thread mill. These milling is much more popular today, though.

@17ultralimited69

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the lecture dude. Now I’m going to get a beer.

I've got three torque wrenches to cover a range of sizes and they live in their cases, get rolled to zero after every use and are not available to borrow by ANYONE but if I like you enough I'll stop by and torque bolts/studs/nuts on your car but you aren't touching my instruments.

@sweetdrahthaar7951

3 жыл бұрын

It’s best to never loan tools of any kind. Even it’s just momentarily and they never leave your sight. Especially a torque wrench, caliper, or any other sensitive or calibrated tool. 👍🏻.

@user-fx4qz8pt3w

3 жыл бұрын

Nobody touches your instruments? So sad for you. 😉

@AlexandarHullRichter

3 жыл бұрын

Nobody's ever asked me for mine, but I wouldn't care as long as I knew they were careful enough to not break stuff. I got a Duralast wrench with one of their no-questions-asked lifetime warranties. I actually just got it replaced for free because I didn't think it was working right. AND I'LL DO IT AGAIN!!!

@bcubed72

3 жыл бұрын

@@user-fx4qz8pt3w Hey, if you want a job done RIGHT...do it yourself!

I bet they gave him a stern torquing to

@tyree9055

3 жыл бұрын

😄😆🤣😂😅

@nicholasvinen

Жыл бұрын

Bravo ☺️

Ben looks like he is hiding between the law books on the right, just above Steve's left shoulder...

@imouse3246

3 жыл бұрын

Found it. √

I had a job working for Kelsey Hayes one summer during college. That summer they modified a production line to assemble axles for mobile homes. Rather than using pre-manufactured axles, they added a semi-automated station to weld spindles to the ends of pipe sections. My station was next in line. The guy across from me and I put camber in (bent) the new axle and installed brakes and wheel bearings. There wasn't enough space on the line to allow the newly welded spindles to cool. We set wheel bearing torque manually by feel. We had to spit on the spindle to tell how hot it was to know how much to over-torque the wheel bearings. When the spindles cooled, they shrunk and the bearing play was correct. We had to tear the axle apart and re-torque if we guessed wrong.

Reminds me of working for a large AC manufacturer. We we getting parts breaking during assembly. Root cause was the assemblers would undo the torque settings to make the guns faster, because they got bonuses based on beating their quotas.

This kind of mistake really torques me off.

We have checked the problem and are happy to report that the problem has been resolved. There is absolutely no charge to you for this. Our technician did note on the work order that it appears that your your vehicle is being operated in a high road salt environment. Your vehicle is fully warranted for 48 months. however rusting can and will continue to occur. We have a special undercoating process available for only 349.99 that will help to mitigate the problem . We actually have an opening at this very moment where can do this process for you. Ka Ching . . . 195 from subaru to tighten a nut . . . 349.99 from the customer for 20 minutes of labor and 15 dollars of undercoating spray. Dealer - Win WIn!

Torque on lug nuts are very important on vehicles where the brake rotor is sandwiched between wheel and the hub. If the nuts are not all torqued to the same tightness, the brake rotor will warp and cause the "pulsating" feeling when you apply the brakes.

Several issues: 1) I almost lost a wheel because it wasn't torqued properly. 2) You were describing a BEAM torque wrench, an old type of wrench. Now days a "breaker" style is used, which "breaks" when the correct torque is reached. Probably measured in inch- pounds in this application. May be measured in the metric equivalent on Subaru vehicles?

Thank goodness for double checks and root cause analysis. Most importantly, for the individuals who cared enough to see it through! It may only have effected 383 cars, but it’s instances like this that prevent future catastrophe’s.

A few decades ago, there was a recall of Cummins Diesel engines. A single employee was improperly installing the clips that secure the wrist pins in the pistons. Consequently, the wrist pins and clips would work their way out and score the cylinder walls.

The factory I work at can tell you who touched what on a given day given the date and shift it was manufactured on. I can't imagine why a car manufacturer couldn't do it.

@larrythompson8630

3 жыл бұрын

WW II my mom worked a munitions job. Iridium 105mm shell after it was heated. (To cause fragments, before explosive added...). Moms job was to place in lathe to remove carbon, imperfections, get them sized to tight tolerance. Then stamp it before down the line. One day they find her shells were out of spec. But the ones on her table were correct. Seems the gal before used her stamp. Mom started, she properly checked machine before starting. My mom who I thought couldn’t check oil.. ran a lathe for artillery shells

@AlexandarHullRichter

3 жыл бұрын

They did. That's why they knew which cars to recall.

Many years ago I read a story from a guy that put some kind of washer in a WW2 tank transmission. He was young and indifferent to what he was doing. A manager told him that quality control found out that he was putting some parts on backwards. The manager reminded him that soldiers might die on the battlefield when their transmission locked up because the young man put a washer on backwards. The guy said that from then on he was much more careful about doing his job correctly. Too bad more people don't do their jobs as if someone's life depended on it. Sometimes it does.

More than likely he was using a “slip torque wrench”. Which is set at a predetermined spec and cannot be changed without being rebuilt. Problem with this wrench is if you use it incorrectly it can differ as much as 30% when wrench slips. Proper way is to use second hand on wrench head for support. Not just turn handle with one hand. Seen this many times as a team member building Mercedes in alabama. Not to mention there is usually a quality team member that make rounds on certain nuts and bolts throughout the day checking torques while vehicles are assembled. This nut is probably not on this persons list... im sure it is now though.

@davidcookmfs6950

3 жыл бұрын

Your description of quality control reminds me of the cause of the crash of Continental Express Flight 2574 in 1991 where an inspector started doing some repair work on the plane to help get the plane repaired in time. However, this created the obvious circumstance that there was no inspector, and the next shift didn't know that he had done any work and that the work he had been doing was incomplete, and that he expected the next shift to pick up where he left off.

@leothenomad5675

3 жыл бұрын

I'm at Ford and that was my first thought, were was the torqe checker, especially since that seems like a delta issue.

@kamakairade2402

3 жыл бұрын

Does holding the tool incorrectly typically result in an under-torqued fastener that vibrates loose, or an over-torqued fastener that has compromised threads and/or snaps the bolt?

@Flynghi

3 жыл бұрын

More than likely under torqued with the slip torque wrench. And as far as over torquing and breaking the bolt it has to be significant. Bc the bolts used in whatever use is usually used at 40% torque of max spec. So youd have to over tighten the bolt by 2.5 times spec before getting into the specifications of any particular bolt.

@GrowthCurveMarketing

3 жыл бұрын

YES. THIS^^^^^

Lafayette is my hometown. Grew up just a few miles from the SIA plant. The improper technique employee was probably one of my high school classmates...

Steve explaining a dial torque wrench is giving me life.

@frankrodriguez1981

3 жыл бұрын

@@Doc_Dolan yeah I meant the beam type! Hahaha. Steve’s dating himself. 😂

@frankrodriguez1981

3 жыл бұрын

@@jamesplotkin4674 you mean from the arthritis right? 😂

I was taught to ask what the torque readings were for lug nuts and drain plugs. Sometimes they have to go check, and more than once they've come back and told me a lug nut was loose. not with drain plugs, although I've known a few people who had either oil pan plug fall out, or in one case, new oil never go in.

@kennethnevel3263

3 жыл бұрын

Had one car I changed oil on I had to use a air impact wrench to get the drain plug loose , the one I use to take wheels off. Some one way over tighten it .

This reminds me of many years ago as a teenager I worked for a car parts factory in MI making circuit boards for high-end rearview mirrors and then assembling them . Well one young guy I worked with would purposely leave out pieces or skip the flux just to see if the group of ladies that ran inspection would catch them. I have to wonder how many of the shoddy ones got through, though its not quite so bad if your rearview mirrors clock or compass stops working..easy to replace and not too pricey. I wonder how common it is for employees to do things like that ,through either ignorance , apathy or malice, especially with big businesses often screwing over employees and/or making them train their replacements . I don't think that I would care to properly train the scab that's taking my job.

@TechGorilla1987

3 жыл бұрын

The clock in my old Subaru was the only thing that ever failed on it.

I have herd a few stories where "improper technique" has caused a product to fail. One such improper technique is tightening the threaded item to spec, removing the item, and tightening it to spec. The guy could have tightened the item in question once and been done with it when he had to tighten it two or three times.

I had a similar problem with a Cadillac about 10 years ago. I have done Corvette museum delivery twice which includes a factory tour. I don't recall them using torque wrenches. They used special tools which have to include preset torque settings.

My dad worked at Buick in 1951. We saw a 52 Buick roadmaster at Autorama once. My dad told the owner that he put the original gas tank in his car. Then went on to tell him the procedure on how it was done, as well informing him that he was drunk the whole time. He would drink a couple beers before work and have a fifth of wine while he worked before lunch. Then another fifth after lunch. Me and the cars owner just listened in awe with our mouths open. Lol.

I would venture to say, that being the week preceding Christmas, this was someone's week of vacation for the year. This was the doing of someone filling in for the person who usually does that job. Just a guess since I work in an automotive type industry and see this all the time! Some can flex and do the job just as good but thats the good circumstances. When heavy attendance issues come up (usually around holidays) when they have to make due with the ones who show up, this happens!

Proper torqueing is a pet peeve of mine. I cannot do maintenance on my car without properly torqueing every structural fastener, including wheel nuts. I just know the engineers and metallurgists who designed the system know a hell of a lot better than me how to properly fasten their stuff. Yeah, you can get away with getting it snug with a tire iron on the side of the road, and it can get you safely to your destination. But, you best believe I'm retorquing it when I get home.

I work for a major automotive manufacturer (not Subaru). This actually happens more frequently than one might think. In most cases, the manufacturer fixes the problem as quietly as possible. If it is caught fast enough, they can check/fix the vehicles before they even arrive at the dealership (such as at a port of entry). The vehicles that do get sold with the problem are usually recalled in a vague way; to use this case as an example, the manufacturer would say "in some vehicles, the shift cable may become detached due to a defect." Not a lie, but it was the labor that was defective, not the part. I am talking specifically about the letters they send to the customers explaining the recall.

I am sure others have commented the same as this by now - at the auto plant where I work fasteners with critical torques are done by wrenches controlled by a computer system. The torque values are recorded and stored in a database by VIN number. If the tool had been defective then the defect would have likely also been done by other workers. As with all such tools, these are calibrated instruments and incorrect torque is not something taken lightly as the fastener often is related to vehicle occupant safety.

I worked on an automotive parts manufacturing line from 1995 to 2000. We used, and I would assume Subaru currently uses an electronic torque gun. Ours had 2 speeds: 1 speed to run the nut or bolt down and a second slower speed to reach the required torque. As an operator, if I were to release the trigger when the first step was done, the second slower final torque sequence would not complete the torque sequence. In our factory, if a person failed to complete that second step, the line would shut down within 30 seconds and an alarm would sound. It sounds like this factory did not have those safeguards. I could stand at my work station and see the main control box and see the torque reading for every single bolt I tightened.

Sometimes people get confused on the proper torque setting. I have read about people in a KLR forum that stripped out fittings because they used foot pounds instead of the inch pounds that the torque specification was given. Units matter. Your channel is always informative and sometimes entertaining. Thank you. 👍

I worked for a large automotive (tire and battery) chain 20+ years ago. We were required to torque every lug nut to spec. The spec was printed on our work order. Not only that, aluminum wheels were supposed to have the lugs re-torqued after so many miles. We did that for free but it was rare that customers would show back up to have it done.

At Chrysler, there was an important torque wrench that made an audible click when enough force was applied, as well as leave a dot of paint on the nut that was being torqued. There was an occasional problem with the paint cartridge as it was not always leaving a dot of paint. The supervisor on a regular basis kept threatening termination to me as i was torquing properly but not leaving a dot. My partner standing right across the line from me was Much Smarter and just banged the torque wrench with enclosed paint cartridge to get a drop of paint on the nut. I guess they thought that the connecting rod coming loose was less than optimal.

Glad you clarified bottle jack, at first I heard bottle of Jack (Daniels) lol

Plant needs to hire Mona Lisa Vito.

@BigDaddy-dr8gf

3 жыл бұрын

She routinely twists to maximum allowable torqugage.

Mr. Steve. I'm not making excuses for the employee. But what if the wrench itself was defective. And when it stopped working he got a new one. And that could be why it was only one week. Hey it's not my fault. I'm an old man and I live alone. To much time on my hands. Keep the good stories coming.

@stevelehto

3 жыл бұрын

It's possible but they made it sound like it was his fault.

@MikinessAnalog

3 жыл бұрын

@@stevelehto Maybe because of your narration style, but I detected no bias in the story, though I could have missed something.

You've quickly become one of my favorite KZread channels

Torque specifications are becoming more common. In the new 2020 National Electrical Code are all manner of torque requirements. Apparently "tighten securely" is no longer enough, you need a $ 200 torque screwdriver. This may not be a bad thing, though, because a loose connection can overheat and cause a fire.

@jblyon2

3 жыл бұрын

Or you could have to undo something my electrician father did 30 years ago which is on so tight you almost need a cheater bar!

@johnpalmer4425

3 жыл бұрын

@@jblyon2 there you go :) I work as a machinist and one shop I was in had the proper torque drivers for all the tools and another didn't. The one who didn't had a lot more stripped insert screws and messed up hydraulic holders which resulted in more damaged/destroyed tools in a year than all the torque tools would have cost in 10 years.

Around 1972, Chevrolet was having a good amount of new cars and trucks returning to dealers for leaking Turbo 350 transmissions. The cure was always replacing the broken O-ring on the transmission dipstick tube. They eventually tracked it down to one disgruntled employee on the assembly line.

I actually have a torque wrench in my truck. Gotta store it somewhere

@buffdelcampo

3 жыл бұрын

I do the same thing. Wrongly torqued lug nuts may cause warped brake rotors which can cause vibration during brake application.

My Dad had a ‘70 Newport Custom with a 383. It was a boat but a great cruising car

My speculation would be that he was using the Newton-Meters setting rather than pound-feet...

@JasonW.

3 жыл бұрын

That's Newton-meters & Edison-feet...

@Randscaping

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks! I’ll read up on that. Doug DeMuro uses Nm as an abbreviation for his on-screen equivalents to pound-feet, but I suspect that may be confused with nanometers.

@johnpalmer4425

3 жыл бұрын

@@Randscaping nanometers would be nm, but I can see how it can be confusing for people who don't work in those units or measurements a lot. This is why those STEM classes are so important in school, even if you are going into the trades. Lets you figure these things out from context.

@MartintheTinman

3 жыл бұрын

Why is it that the country that doesn't use metres insists on spelling it wrong

Ben seems to be peeking out to the left of the Moosejaw sticker, between the Michigan law books.

Every weld on a pipeline is accounted for, who welded it, which welding machine he/she used etc. Got to be able to track down issues.

Where were the inspectors? Was the operator trained properly? I once saved a recall when I ripped the door off of a Citation and they found many had defective welds. The welder was named Mr. Roboto. Yes, defective robotic welder.

@IronmanV5

3 жыл бұрын

Domo arigato misuta Robotto

@donadkins9742

3 жыл бұрын

I remember working on Citations at the local dealer. The 1981 models were a real son of a gun to R&R the rack and pinion. Did a bunch of them due to hard steering. Best thing about them was the suspension parts they used in designing the Pontiac Fiero.

@johnlong7438

3 жыл бұрын

im betting it was a defective torque wrench.

@John_Ridley

2 жыл бұрын

From later stories it sounds like this guy was intentionally screwing up. He was probably doing it correctly when the inspectors were watching.

You wondered how may times issue had to happen before it raised a red flag, I used to work for a Caterpillar dealer and CAT was adamant about reporting incidents...they said even though we may not think it’s a big deal but from their global tracking, by reporting incidents they can quickly determine if it’s a one off or a trend...also by machine & component where the problem originated.

@common_c3nts

3 жыл бұрын

Subaru's plant has digitize sensors on their torque wrenches so they know live if something is torqued wrong. The story makes no sense unless the workers was using the wrench on the wrong bolt.

@AlexandarHullRichter

3 жыл бұрын

@@common_c3nts the way in which you're holding/turning the wrench can compromise torque accuracy, even if the tool is set correctly.

I recently called an Isuzu dealer to confirm if 289 ft lb of torque was correct for a 1999 NPR on the Budd style lug nuts as it seemed low in value. The response was: we usually give them two or three ugga uggas with the 1" impact. 👀 Evidently the dealer uses calibrated guesstimated values. 🤔 Needless to say, 2 uggas is over 300 ft lbs according to the torque wrench click when checking.

I can vouch for vibrations causing things to come loose. I had a 1964 MGB that once a week I had to go through the cabin and re-tighten every screw in the cabin because because they always vibrated loose. But none of those were as critical as the CVT selector cable.

I've changed tires at the side of the road without a torque wrench, but I have heard that overtightening can warp the brake rotors and under-tightening, obviously, could be a problem too.

@JasonEDragon

3 жыл бұрын

Several years ago I got into a habit of loosening and then retorquing each lug nut to manufacturer specifications anytime a mechanic removes a wheel. Sure enough, a few years later after an inspection a wheel was on so tight that I could not remove any of the lug nuts. Took it back to the repair shop and they had to use a long pipe over the wrench to loosen the lug nuts. Not only could that have warped the rotor it could have also stranded me if I ever got a flat on that tire and had to try to change it by the side of the road. Thinking about it, the number of brakes jobs that I needed done over the years was probably the reason why I started checking the torque in the first place.

@MartintheTinman

3 жыл бұрын

@@JasonEDragon . Years ago a friend of mine got a flat tyre and the wheel nuts (I'm not a Yank) were so tight it took ages to get them loosened. I think we even bent the wheel brace because one had to jump up and down on it while the other held it on the nut. My local tyre dealer uses a torque wrench but it wasn't in the shop a last Friday when I bought new tyres. One wheel had the nuts so tight I had to use my legs on the breaker bar to loosen the nuts. Another wheel had a nut that was practically loose and another nut so tight that I had to have both feet on the breaker bar. Funny thing is that they said to come back after the weekend to have the nuts tightened with the torque wrench. I wish I had waited so that they could see what a poor job they'd done but I cleaned the wheels and removed all the tape from the weights that was still stuck to the rims over the weekend

@stijnvandamme76

2 жыл бұрын

rotor warping is usually from torqueing them unevenly.. not overtorqueing over torque is more likely to cause problems with the alloy wheels stress fractures near the bolt holes.. and high speed wheel disintegration as a result. Very dangerous, much more then warping a rotor.

@bills48321

2 жыл бұрын

@@stijnvandamme76 Thanks

Mixed up ft-pounds with Newton-meters? Lol. I like the torque wrench that clicks.

A bolt is a spring and torque is the measure of spring load . Some bolts can only be undone with an impact driver. ( Motorcycles mostly, aluminum bolts ) The spring must be compressed to be loosened.

Worked at a Chrysler assembly plant in the 70's. Air tools where calibrated to stall at the proper torque. Manual wrenches where of the 'click' type but not adjustable by the user. A QC team moved through the plant with a rolling bench. They tested & adjusted every tool on a regular basis. A long Allen wrench reached way up into the handle for adjustment. It was forbidden to have any tool from outside in the plant. A gimmick tool on a key ring or a Leatherman could get you fired. No electronic gauges on the line back then. Electric tools used an odd volt/phase/cycle combination to discourage theft. The plant made it's own electric power. 55 cars an hour.

I’ve installed torque control equipment. This is a quality system problem more than an operator problem. Side note: I worked at a place where an operator decided to use rivet an assembly together rather than using a bolt. After a recall, eventually engineering decided that riveting was a better solution and the operation was changed to riveting.

My buddy worked at Chevy dealer in Dowagiac Michigan. Had a car come intermittent die no ignition. Found few things loose nothing serious. Could not get it to do it on test drives. Couple days later back for same thing. Working for free dug back into it. Contacted manufacturer engineer nothing conclusive sent back out. 3rd time tearing dash out once more on conference call with 2 engineers they said they had more cars with same problem. He finally found out that all the screws holding the blower assembly to firewallwere supposed to be 3/4 inch screws. One of them in a hard to reach spot was 1 1/4 inch right behind wire loom going to ignition every now and then poke wires . Wouldn't stay shorted out. All the cars having problems were 2nd shift the guy putting blowers on would stop and grab longer screws to use as first screw in because it made it easier

Worked in a co-op placement at an oil, tires, and brakes place (we'd occasionally touch on other stuff, but that was our main shtick) We'd generally use a specialised rod on a wheel gun to get 'about right' on lug nut torque. (using generalized options, rather than checking anything for a specific car) On more expensive cars, or our more valued customers, it was always, always torqued by hand, with a torque wrench, no mucking around at all. While I was working on cars in a high-school auto shop program, they had us using a torque wrench for the bolt you pull out to drain the oil pan!

When Costco installs your tires they use a torque wrench and tell you to swing by in a week to have them checked. I've bought many tires and never went back to check them. This time, I just happened to need to take a tire off and all of the lug nuts were slightly loose. So from now on, I will be taking them back for a check. We all have seen the video of a tire coming off at high speed.

I usually just torque things until they strip or break, then I know I went too far.

@mph5896

3 жыл бұрын

When I use a torque wrench, that’s what happens. Tighten stuff without and no problem

@walttrotter535

3 жыл бұрын

That's how engineers find proper torque ratings

@ericvanswoll4611

3 жыл бұрын

We call that "torque to yield"

@and4all706

3 жыл бұрын

He probable forgot to have it calibrated at the beginning of his shift. Thats about the only way you can screw up the technique of using one.

@and4all706

3 жыл бұрын

@@yt650 finding the failure rate is done behind the scenes. It is used to then set the torque on the production floor. All the worker knows is what range the wrench has to fall within to use it. You are thinking way to hard about a basic wrench, or you just want to appear smart.

You can tell how old Steve is when he describes the torque wrench, LOL No owls here

@dpwaaw

3 жыл бұрын

yup, I got one too.......I'm 61

@dixiechampagne2892

3 жыл бұрын

I have a couple of vintage ones that belonged to my dad, who would have soon been turning 82. My 1/2" drive wrench is the ratchet-type

@matthewbeasley7765

3 жыл бұрын

Especially in a production manner. The production line I work with (non-automotive) uses electronic torque guns. The operator scans the bar-code of the part they are adding. That wirelessly re-programs the torque gun setting to match the part the operator is adding. Almost all of our torque issues are due to cross threading and the operator not giving a damn to fix it right.

@maybeiam3367

3 жыл бұрын

Uhh how’s that? There are plenty of products today where you’re required or recommended to have a certain torque value

@stijnvandamme76

2 жыл бұрын

@@matthewbeasley7765 Many lines i've seen they use multiple wrenches, preset labeled with the torque they are set to worker has to pick up right one, apply it to the right bolt..

My 2017 SUV had a recall for a non-safety related issue. When my SUV displayed the the fault, I called the dealership to have the issue repaired. When I set up the appointment at the dealership, the service manager said that my SUV's VIN was not part of the recall group. I went ahead and set up the service appointment anyway and when I arrived, the service manager agreed that my SUV did in fact have the defective component even though the VIN was not listed in the recall group. The dealership did replace the part and I went on my way. This example shows that the tracking used on vehicle components is not perfect and if the year, make and model of your vehicle is involved in a recall, it would be a good idea to confirm that your vehicle does not have the defective part, especially if it is a safety related issue. Just because you did not receive a recall notice from the manufacturer does not guarantee that your vehicle is not affected!

WOW...you're really pumping out the videos.

I also keep a bottle of Jack in my truck for emergencies. I suppose giving it to a kid on the side of the road might make him feel better but it sure won't help him get his tires switched

Torque specs for lug nuts are vital. The first reason is that if the wheels are not torqued completely evenly, the brakes will warp and start pulsating. Over time wheels, brakes and hubs can be damaged as a result. It is not necessary to use a torque wrench just when installing the spare tire, but that's because the spare tire is supposed to be removed and replaced by a shop as soon as you are able to reach one. It is driving over extended periods of time with unevenly torqued nuts that causes damage. Obviously there are two other factors that are important. You need the lug nuts to be tight enough that they will not work their way loose and allow the wheel to detach from the car later on. They also need to be installed so they are not tight enough to damage to the studs that the wheel is mounted on. Over tightening a lug nut enough to damage the studs will cause them to break later on, and the wheel to come off. Replacing studs is not fun, especially if you have to replace them because someone else over torqued your nuts. Y'all can take a wild guess how I know that part.

Steve.we are in the computer age. Loved your discription of a Torque wrench, you can't be that old!

@jimnotter6046

3 жыл бұрын

Yes he can. I am.

"On the back of the wrench is a needle", me thinks it's been a few years since Steve used a torque wrench 😂

@stevelehto

3 жыл бұрын

Trying to describe how it works for people who don't know what one is. If I said it was a wrench with a digital readout it wouldn't have done that.

@BruceS42

3 жыл бұрын

I'm picturing AvE's torque wrench..."uurrrgggg...click!" FWIW, I have two torque wrenches. One has a needle on the back, with a scale, and is for relatively low torque values. It doesn't read in foot pounds, but rather in inch ounces. The other is a "clicker", and handles higher torque. Steve's description is legit, if not comprehensive. I wonder why, if the nut is not supposed to ever come loose, it wouldn't have thread lock on it. And now I'm amazed at just how many comments are complaining about the torque wrench description. Still, better than being so humorless as to complain about the flat Earth shirt. That would take a truly impressive level of non-life.

@jimnotter6046

3 жыл бұрын

@@stevelehto And then there is parallax error.

There are also torque wrenches that make a clicking noise when the specified torque is reached. I suspect that this was the type of wrench used. Needle wrenches on the other hand are used to check the torque after the bolt has been tightened. I have seen demonstrations showing that a false torque can be given on completely loose bolts when the wrench is braced against some other object. As for the lug nuts, over torquing can cause stress on the studs which can cause the stud to crack and eventually break. This is why the owners manual gives torque specs for this.

Is "improper torque wrench technique" a phrase like "wardrobe malfunction"?

@imouse3246

3 жыл бұрын

"Improper use of a tool' could be used for many things.

I've seen guys renuilding classic Rolla Royce's and rhe torque specs, in the manual, by the way is something like, "these bolts should be made well fast, so tighten them quite snugly" or something like that.

I came home from work one evening, a friend was working on his car in my driveway. As you know, head bolts can sometimes be of different lengths. My friend had stopped torquing his head bolts after he snapped off the third one. ...

Vacation replacement? I was a mechanic for years and I torqued every lug nut. Never wanted warped rotors.

It's nice that Suby is at least catching and fixing the problem. Toyota knew waaaay back that they messed up over-torquing the left-side head bolts on the 2AZFE (aluminum block), but did nothing. Their "solution" was to deny it, then years later (after the warranties were up) issue a TSB for helicoil/TimeSert installation (which was the solution figured out by indy shops years before). The problem caused the left side head bolts to strip the threads on the aluminum block, allowing the head to lift up and coolant to leak externally from the engine (!). I'm a huge Toyota fan, but what they did was not right -- they should have made it right. There are many thousands of people who owned '02 - '05 Camrys, Rav4, etc, who will never, ever be Toyota customers again after what Toyota did to them. And this was right after Toyota's debacle on the Rav4 ECU's with the improperly soldered resistors which cause transmission failure (ECT's), which they also terribly mishandled. And now the fuel pumps....

From mid 1980's when General Motors computerized their accounting and a decade later became fully computerized, yet today, less than 40 years later, we can identify the PERSON who merely tightened specific hardware on EACH of the World's millions of cars produced every year. WOW - lot to unpack there...

Used to work for a tyre place and all vehicles had lug nuts tightened with torque wrench. Importantly the shop wrench was always left at rest position (no torque set) set to the correct spec for the vehicle and wheel type, used on the vehicle, then returned to 0 setting to avoid de-calibration from having the spring constantly under expansion. Most vehicles in the UK with alloy wheels are set to 110Nm (Newton meters) as my Subaru is.... I don't have to use a torque wrench for my wheels since I have the experience of doing that at work 20 years ago I have become the torque wrench! (only for 110Nm setting though). Interestingly referencing your point about cylinder heads, some vehicles will specify a sequence and angle pattern for the removal of cylinder heads to avoid warping in removal.

As someone who works for one of the big three, on the floor and has checking bolt/nut torque all day, there was a failure on multiple levels. Yes an individual could be using a torque gun/wrench in an improper manner, but it should have been caught within a shift. Also engineering, both within the plant and for the tool supplier should have made sure that using the tool in that manner was not possible. Every factory that I know of/been in use electric torque tools.

As you can imagine there are a myriad number of ways this system can be compromised. I once had a job on an engine assembly line called a "torque assembly audit". Once a shift I would go down the line & check the torque on the fasteners with a highly accurate torque wrench & the data would be stored digitally for records & future reference. There were a couple of skilled trade guys working with me to adjust the air supply to the air driven assembly wrenches to acchieve proper torque if the torque was indeed out of "spec". I found it strange that the torques were almost always out of spec on the high end. It took me awhile to discover that the supervisor for that section of the line was going behind us & readjusting the air to full power every day so that "He" wouldn't have any loose fasteners. An over torqued fastener can be as dangerous as a loose one.

Can't speak to Ford back in the day, but from my work into Jeffery (which became Nash and then AMC), record keeping was very poor. There appears to have been just the minimum of paperwork necessary. They don't even appear to have kept detailed production figures as a corporation--just an overall time period's production. If you want to figure out how many, for instance, Rambler Type III variants were made in 1908, you need to look into registrations and make a guess based on how many were registered for use on the roads. There would need to be an order, a build sheet following a car through the factory, and a sheet for the order leaving the factory to be delivered, but I'd wager they were only kept for one fiscal year before being discarded. The prevailing management philosophy of the day was about efficiency and not about keeping records to ensure quality. Even the idea of ensuring quality control by statistical study of the product was decades away when the early major carmakers got going, much less the kind of record keeping they would develop over time that allows Subaru to know which specific worker under-torqued one nut over the course of a single week.

My son didn't grow up turning wrenches; I did, including quite a few wheel changes--without a torque wrench, of course. What a good many of us old-timers never realized, however, was that car makers would switch to aluminum instead of steel for the lug bolts/nuts---which can strip a whole heap more easily. He stripped most of his. I've got no idea if this was a corrosion or a weight matter, but to me it was a terrible idea on a Honda Accord. They lightened the brake drums/discs, too, so those warp much more readily than steel. Don't you just love "PROGRESS!?" Don't even mention that almost no one remembers the counter-rotating nuts on old Chryslers! (Fortunately I think all the Rudge wires I've seen were marked!)

My first car was a 68 plymouth fury III, 383ci. It was dubbed "the hu ride". Barn find 1993.

Maybe he was torqued off at the company?

Torque = force times distance. Pound feet is fine, feet pounds is fine, newton meters is fine too if that's how you roll. Inch pounds is used on some smaller diameter bolts & nuts.

@and4all706

3 жыл бұрын

Torque is a rotational force, not a linear force.

"I don't know what this nut looks like". That wasn't very nice Steve to call the worker a nut. :P

Steve, the torque wrench in factories are electronic and computer controlled. At a station where you have to torque multiple different torques, you chose a numeric number on the display, 1,2 et, that sets the wrench and you put it on and hit the button it does thing. It's all computer controlled and sends the torque back so it can be traced.

I’ve worked on nuclear reactors and steam power systems- correct torque is mandatory.

I have a 4 foot torque wrench that goes to 650 ft/lbs. Couple that to a torque multipier, and I can get Mack U bolts to over 2000 ft/lbs. Two person job, ungodly pain in the rear. But, hey, the truck handles like a dream!

Yup. That was my '70 Challenger. Great car! Cheers, Steve

@imouse3246

3 жыл бұрын

'64 Polara 440 HT for me.

Hopefully the person didn't lose their job but was instructed on the proper way to toque the bolts

8:30 - I pretty sure automobile manufacturers no longer tighten one head bolt at time. They have robots that simultaneously install and tighten all of the bolts to the correct specification.

I wonder if he’s the guy that tightened the transmission drain plug on my 2015 XV crosstrek. After 3000 miles the transmission developed a leaky plug. I was accused of going to jiffy lube to get my first oil change. When Subaru themselves offers 2 years of service as part of the sale.

I had a motorcycle that had one bolt that everyone stripped out. I asked if anyone knew what the torques specs were for that bolt. Of course no one did. They were all blaming the manufacturer so I pointed out the specs on that are 8 pounds. As you know you can get it that tight with your little finger. The over tightening was not the manufacturers fault. It was the end users fault. I even had some mechanics that said they never noticed that before.