Waldo928

I finally finished up the torque tube and torque converter bearing replacement on my '86.5 and I thought I would share some ideas on a couple of custom tools I made to help with the re-assembly. The would have been helpful on dis-assembly too but if you want to use a torque wrench on some bolts it can be particularly frustrating to get at them. I don't like having a lot of special tools around since they take up space and funds and sit for years unused, but sometime you've "got" to have them.

Both of the tools I made were variations of a dog-bone extension commonly used on torque wrenches. The first one I made was using a 19mm combination wrench from Harbor Freight. I placed the female end of a 3/8" socket extension in the open end and welded it in place (the weld isn't pretty, but it held). Then I cut the remainder of the extension off. This enabled me to get the box end on the upper bell housing bolts and torque them to spec (unlike the PO). I also used it on the nut for the rear lower control arm eccentrics. I tried a crows foot on that one, but the box end worked better.

The second dog bone was to tighten the rear axle nuts. My Snap-On torque wrench only goes up to 250 ft-lb so I had to find a way to get those up to the required 339 ft-lb. I could have tightened them up to 250 and then gone to a local shop and ask them to tighten them the rest of the way, but making the dog bone was probably faster. I got a 1/2" drive socket extension from Home Depot that was 10" long. I probably could have gotten it cheaper from HF. I needed at least 10" because once I bent it in an "S" I needed at least 6.5" of extension to make it work. I paced the end in a bench vise and heated it up with a torch. Then I just bent it a little over 90 degrees. I swapped ends and did the same thing to the other end going in the opposite direction so the axis were parallel. In hindsight I should have just bent them 90 degrees because I needed a short extension to reach the axle bolt.

There are several online calculators you can use to determine what torque you need to set your wrench to when using a dog bone extension. Both extensions worked great. Don't know when I'll need them again but they cost me less than $20 to make. Here are a few pictures:



Tightening the axle bolts