torquing main bearing caps

Cool! You're a diesel mechanic by trade? Sometimes I wish I had chosen that path or something other than buying my own truck, but I'm 73 years old and there is no going back now.

Nobody is going to fire me. I'm a one-man trucking company. If anybody was going to fire me I'd have to fire myself.

I like the book, but also, there is the matter of experience.

I met the fellow many years ago at a neighbor's campfire party. We got to talking and I found out he was a trucker like me, but also that he was experienced in rebuilding Detroit engines, that he had done many of them. He is the one who told me about the method of torquing and then turning by degrees to a final torque.

I'm not inventing or reinventing anything. I'm remembering something told to me by a fellow who has rebuilt Detroit engines, but it's been so many years, I cannot remember the details, like the original partial torque or the number of flats turned to complete the torque. That's why I started this topic. I was hoping to find somebody who had this experience who knew the numbers, the details.

My neighbor moved away, and I have no way to contact the fellow I talked to sitting at the campfire.

Here is a video of somebody using the torque and turn method. It starts at 9 minutes into the video. It's an example, but it's on a Caterpillar engine. I take it that the guy in the video works in the shop, so it must be an accepted method.

 

I have a question for you. Let's suppose I had one of those large torque wrenches, which I don't, and let's further suppose I had an endless supply of series 60 engines to rebuild, which I don't either. However, we can imagine that after torquing enough main bearing bolts, something might be revealed. If, after using a half-inch drive torque wrench to establish an intial torque of 100 ft. lbs., for step 1, and marking the head of the bolt, for step 2, we proceed to step 3, which is finalizing the torque to 360 ft. lbs. with a large torque wrench, discovering that between step 2 and step 3 the number of degrees of turn is always the same—exactly the same—then might we not simplify the procedure? Might we not eliminate the use of the torque wrench for step 3 and use an impact wrench instead? The bolt ends up in the same place whether we use the torque wrench or the impact wrench.

Isn't that a matter of experience?

That is why I started this thread. I was hoping to find somebody who had experience using this method who could supply me with the necessary details, namely the ft. lbs. to be used for the initial torquing with a half-inch drive torque wrench, and the number of degrees of turn necessary to finalize the torquing of the bolt.

In the Caterpillar video, the fellow makes an initial bolt torquing of 110 ft. lbs. and finalizes the torque by turning a further 60°.

I wonder what those numbers would be for a series 60. The same? More? Less?

Does anybody here have that information?

 

I don't have a 3/4" drive torque wrench, and it's more than a matter of "sticking it on there and givin' a pull." The engine is in the truck. I'll be underneath, with barely enough room to move. If the handle was 4' long, I'd have to pull nearly a hundred pounds while on my back and little room to maneuver, all the while holding the socket up with the other hand to prevent it from dropping.

I don't wanna experiment and come up with a torque and turn value. I'm asking for the values. I'm asking somebody who knows to please provide me with the values, the numbers, the info. That's what I'm here for.

 

"Answer that I want to hear?"

Not even close.

Information that I need is more like it.