12
20 years of torquing main landing gear nuts wrong
I was working late on a DC-9 last Wednesday and an old lead mechanic walked by and watched me snug down a main gear axle nut. He said, 'Son, you're chasing torque instead of feel, that nut should be at 120 foot-pounds but you're cranking it to 140 and backing off.' He showed me that the manual spec is a range, not a target, and I'd been over-torquing every single one for two decades. Has anyone else had an old timer point out a basic mistake you thought you had mastered?
2 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In2 Comments
wren8261mo ago
Twenty years of torquing and nobody caught it until now? What else do you figure you've been doing by the numbers instead of the actual reality of the part?
7
the_charles1mo ago
Right? Makes you wonder how many other "standard practices" are just inherited dogma that nobody ever questions. Probably half the stuff in the service manual is based on some guy's Best Guess from 1982.
4