Date:         Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:03:17 -0500
Reply-To:     Allan Streib <streib@CS.INDIANA.EDU>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Allan Streib <streib@CS.INDIANA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: nuts in steering linkage and rack
Comments: To: Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@turbovans.com>
In-Reply-To:  <01a701c841f0$7b233300$6401a8c0@TOSHIBALAP>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed

Well I'm not doubting what you say about not ever having a failure,
but there was SOME reason the engineers went to the trouble of
stating "always replace" on these particular nuts.  They didn't just
toss that in there for fun.  So, either they're a special single-use
design of some sort, or they are ordinary nuts but for some reason
they still should not be re-used.  Maybe new ones come pre-coated
with thread-locker or something?

I just looked at the ones I removed and they look absolutely ordinary
to me.  I'll probably re-use them, but put some loc-tite on them just
to feel better.

Allan

On Dec 18, 2007, at 10:37 PM, Scott Daniel - Shazam wrote:

> I guess I'm going to die just any day now when my steering nuts and
> bolts
> fail from being reused.
> Steering bolts and nuts are made extremely well.  Steering is even
> more
> critical that brakes actually.   I have put hundreds of those back
> together
> with the same fasteners. And I darn sure wouldn't be replacing
> original
> german parts with anything from a hardware store !
>   If you put them back together carefully and good n'
> tight.........the
> chance of them failing is nil.  Unless you do something dumb like
> don't
> tighten properly, or extremely over tighten them etc.   I might
> make a lot
> of things tighter than the published toques btw, sometimes they'll
> have like
> 18 ft. lbs on a bolt and that's not much at all.  It depends.