- Joined
- June 17, 2004
- Messages
- 24,267
- Reaction score
- 4,737
- City, State
- Knoxville, TN
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 98 Limited AWD 302
Looking at the picture the bolts appear to be nothing more than a grade 8 bolt fly cut on one side.
I wonder if you can get a grade 10.8 same size and fly cut. Then put more torque on it?
I wish the shiny aftermarket bolts were grade eight bolts, but I doubt it. If 100lbsft was actually put on the bolts, they shouldn't come loose. But it's hard to get that much torque on each one, and I think most alignment shops use no torque wrench on them. I believe all shops use just wrenches for those control arm bolts, and sockets when they have to.
I do most of my tightening without a torque wrench, from experience, but that's for me alone and not customers. I would prefer all shops to use a torque wrench for suspension work. I used my torque wrench for all of the bolts I could when I rebuilt my sister's 2007 Wrangler Unlimited front suspension. Those are notorious for "death wobble", and she had all original parts at 180k miles. Some Firestone place put on a new panhard bar and steering shock, which "solved" the symptom, for a year. When I got involved, I told her it could need everything depending on the damage. I replaced all TRE's and BJ's first(helped it), then the steering shock again, steering box. Still didn't fix it all, so I did all four control arms, plus an aftermarket PHB, and a bigger bolt kit. That solved it, the wear was spread among many parts, from old age and the vibrations causing more.