I am about to change out my 1 piece front hub/rotor on my 04 RWD Lariat with the Centrics 2 piece unit. I asked a friend of mine who is a professional auto mechanic and has been for a million years if he had a torque wrench that is rated for 300 ft/lbs, and when I told him it was to torque a spindle nut at 295 he laughed. He said he has done this job on a thousand vehicles and basically said there is no way it should be torqued that high. When I told him that's what the Ford engineers came up with he didn't change his mind in the least (especially since it has a cotter pin to keep the nut from backing off).

My questions are.......Why does this need to be torqued at such a tremendously higher number than others?

What are the possibilities if it weren't torqued as tight as it calls for?

This is a one piece bearing....right?

I understand the problems with over torque.

 

That's the hub. That fails and your dead or seriously injured. It's 295 ft/lbs for a reason. The harbor freight wrench is 300 ft/lbs and comes with a certification of calibration. Have it verified if it makes you feel better. Don't even get me started on torque specs. My truck has had way way to many issues due to people having the approach your buddy does. Look at my alignment threads if you want to see what happens when someone says not to worry about that.

 

I didn't agree with him concerning the torque value. I tend to agree with engineers on stuff like this. I work with a slew of them and they are kinda smart about their stuff. As far as what is at stake, the same thing can be said of wheel bearing retaining nuts that are torqued at much lower values. I believe the castle nut and cotter pin is insurance against it failing to the point of coming off. Anyway, I'm not trying to start a heated debate or anything. I am just wondering why the torque number is so high. Are you saying you had mulitple failures because the nut was put on and repeatedly undertorqued?

Anyone else care to chime in on why the number is so high?

BTW John, I am going to get the Harbor Freight wrench. Mainly because of the four or five shop mechanics I talked to, none of them have a wrench that torques that high. That tells me when they have a situation like changing the hub on a truck like mine, they wing it. I am not a "wing it" kind of guy. I'll do the 295 and go about my business.

Thanks for the reply John.

 

You're welocome bud. I had countless shops fail to tighten my control arms and went through over 5 alignments after I kept telling them 200 ft/lbs. You have the right approach but I'm not sure why it is that high. My guess is that it's a situation much like the lower shock bolt. 351 ft/lbs. I impact that on.. can't do much else there. But they probably found it's a torque level that prevented any loosening or issues in their testing. If you read through a Haynes manual you can see how various configurations in designs of sway bars change torque values. 04-05 have much higher end link torque than later years. It's interesting for sure and good choice on the centric kit. I'd look at doing flex lines while you're in there.