Heard a young mechanic say "torque to yield" like it was nothing new

Was grabbing a coffee at the hangar break room Tuesday morning and overheard one of the new guys talk about torquing cylinder base nuts to yield on a Continental. Made me stop and think back to when I started in '98, we just torqued everything to a number and called it good. Now these kids have angle gauges and spec sheets for stuff we never even touched. Makes me wonder how many engines I got away with back then just by feel and a beam wrench. Has anyone else noticed how much the overhaul procedures have changed even in the last ten years?

3 comments

3 Comments

graceblack7d ago

Not like I've got a horse in this race or anything but I had a buddy who swore by the old school way on his IO-360. He did a top overhaul and just torqued everything down tight with an old Craftsman beam wrench, no angle gauge, no new procedure. Engine ran good for about 20 hours then he started hearing a pop on number three. Pulled the head off and found the stud had pulled the threads clean out of the case. That was a 500 dollar helicoil job and a lot of cuss words. So yeah maybe some of these new steps are a pain but they're not always just selling tools.

samjohnson7d ago

Torquing to yield on a Continental seems like overkill to me. I've got a 1970s Lycoming in my shop right now that's been torqued with the same beam wrench and no angle gauge for 50 years and it runs fine. These new procedures just sell more tools and manuals.

jessica_ross387d ago

Buddy of mine followed that old school logic on his O-470 and snapped two studs last year during a simple rocker box cover job. Turned a $20 gasket fix into a weekend of extracting broken bolts from the crankcase. Sometimes those new procedures are there because somebody already learned the hard way so you don't have to.