Spring-eye and shackle torque?

[Mastiff]

How hard should I torque down my spring eye bolts? I put the greasable bushings from ORD in my rear springs, but was uncertain how tight to go. For now I have them pretty loose, like just barely squeezing the bushing. I wonder if that's bad for the handling though? The rear end seems slightly wallowy now. Thoughts?

 

[jjlaughner]

just checked the chilton

ubolts 150 ft/lbs
spring shackle 50ft/lbs
front eye 90ft/lbs
rear eye bolt 50ft/lbs /forums/images/graemlins/waytogo.gif

 

[spearchucker]

I'm doing this project right now. My Chevy manual calls for 92 ft/lbs for all three bolts (main eye, spring to shackle, and shackle to hanger). That's for the rear, haven't checked the front yet but will if you want me to.
I also found this post from Stephen. /forums/images/graemlins/thumb.gif

 

[Mastiff]

Hmmm. So I have a lot of conflicting numbers... The other post made it sound like 75-80 for everything but front spring shackles. You are saying 92? That's like infinite basically... I'm only doing the rear springs right now, so should the shackle to hangar be less than the spring eye, like 50 instead of 75?

In the end it probably doesn't matter all that much. I was really loose though... I set my torque wrench to 75 (as high as it goes) and I got a lot of turns, especially on the shackle-to-hangar. I could back it off to 50 though, if that's the correct thing to do.

 

[84_Chevy_K10]

Since the bolt is 7/16" I'd say 50 is closer to correct.

We've talked about this before in the past though. If the sleeve is the correct length, you should be able to torque the bolts to yield and the entire thing would still work correctly.

 

[Mastiff]

The thing I'm a little confused about is where the flex/rotation comes from. Does the spring eye rotate around the bushing, or does the bushing stay fixed with the spring and the shackle rotate around that?

When you torque it down like crazy, it squeezes the bushing, so it's harder for it to rotate against the shackle. The rubber seems to have no ability to rotate inside the spring, except for the actual twist of the rubber. With the greasable bushings though, maybe they can - although the grease channels are against the bolt/sleeve if I remember correctly.

If the bushing width with two of them together is the same as the sleeve or slightly shorter, then I suppose you could pretty much torque away and the bushing could rotate around the sleeve. Thing is, especially on the hangar side, the hangar sides are not parallel to the bushings, they are narrower at the bottom, so torquing the hangar way down will squish the bushing on the bottom regardless...

Enough rambling. /forums/images/graemlins/whistling.gif

 

[84_Chevy_K10]

The bolt rotates inside the sleeve and the sleeve pivots inside.

Check out kidjehro's 52" spring post and you'll see.