GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

I had some work done on a rack today and the tech. notice that one of the 2 nuts that attach the strut to the suspension was missing. I went down the road and got one from the Toyota dealer and installed at home. The other one was loose also. Tourque to 162 lbs.!

You should report this to Pontiac---this could of been serious had your wheel come off while driving. But who installed your swaybar and springs---Perhaps they left it off James

It's pretty simple Shibaman: Whoever did you Hochkiss spring installation clearly failed to re-torque the nuts afterwards! Better have an up close and personal talk with the culprit. (and check the other side...)

quote:I had some work done on a rack today and the tech. notice that one of the 2 nuts that attach the strut to the suspension was missing. I went down the road and got one from the Toyota dealer and installed at home. The other one was loose also. Torque to 162 lbs.! Wow! When attaching the strut to the spindle torque the bolts to 80ft/lbs.

Yes, it was the tuner shop that installed the springs that screwed up.The upper nut on the same side was also loose. I think that he did not tighten properly on that side. I checked the other side and it was fine. Lucky the guy at the muffler shop found it! I am going to have words with them.

quote: Tourque to 162 lbs.! Which bolts are you referring to????? 162lbs????? Thanks,Carl

They are the 2 bolts and nuts that attach the strut to the lower suspencion. A Toyota tech. looked it up for me in his service manual.

quote:They are the 2 bolts and nuts that attach the strut to the lower suspension. A Toyota tech. looked it up for me in his service manual.This is what your talking about, the strut to the spindle in my book only requires 80ft/lbs.

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quote:They are the 2 bolts and nuts that attach the strut to the lower suspension. A Toyota tech. looked it up for me in his service manual.This is what your talking about, the strut to the spindle in my book only requires 80ft/lbs.My Vibe service manual says that the torque spec on the bolt/nut (the one that your pic shows being adjusted with the power tool) is 220 N-m, or 162.3 lb ft. It calls these "Strut to Steering Knuckle Nuts and Bolts"What's a spindle?

Technically, the spindle is just the shaft part that the wheel bearings ride on, but many people call the whole casting by that name. It also goes by knuckle, steering knuckle, upright, etc.I can tell you that the factory sure torqued the strut/knuckle bolts on my car to more than 80! It felt more like 2X the wheel nuts...

Ok, I knew about a spindle in the non-drive wheels, was looking at my book and rasermons pic trying to find something that looked like a spindle on the drivce wheel, since he mentioned 80 ftlbs for the strut to spindle bolts.Those bolts get the highest torque in the supsension, followed closely by the front (and rear on AWD) drive shaft nuts at 159.3

So, what is the correct torque spec?This is what I went by. Installation of front coil springs from Hotchkis page No. 4.

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quote:So, what is the correct torque spec?(removed), Sounds like we need to give a Pontiac dealer a call and see what their service dept. says they show it needs to be torqued to, just to be safe. Now that the question came up, personally, 80lbs sounds a little low, but 162lbs sounds quite high. Wouldn't want them to loosen up, but then again, I wouldn't want them to snap off either.

quote:(removed), Sounds like we need to give a Pontiac dealer a call and see what their service dept. says they show it needs to be torqued to, just to be safe. Now that the question came up, personally, 80lbs sounds a little low, but 162lbs sounds quite high. Wouldn't want them to loosen up, but then again, I wouldn't want them to snap off either.Tomorrow it's going in to our local Pontiac deal for a 4 wheel alignment. I'll ask them and also give J.C. a call at Hotchkis. Update G.M. Service Information:Strut to Steering Knuckle Nuts and Bolts 162.3 lb ft

Definately let us know. I would like to make sure everything is torqued down to the right specs.

quote:Definately let us know. I would like to make sure everything is torqued down to the right specs.JC is not with Hotchkis anymore, but I did talk to Mark. He said to follow GM specs on all nuts. Next Tue. he (Mark) will get with one of the engineers at Hotchkis and bring up this issue with him (80 ft/lbs torque on the lower strut.)

quote:What did we do on your's? 120?80 ft/lbsBTW welcome back.

quote:JC is not with Hotchkis anymore, but I did talk to Mark. He said to follow GM specs on all nuts. Next Tue. he (Mark) will get with one of the engineers at Hotchkis and bring up this issue with him (80 ft/lbs torque on the lower strut.)I compared your instructions with my Vibe service manual, and the first two torque values are close, but the last two are different. I marked on the pic in red the torque values from the service manual, in case this helps when you talk to Hotchkis. THe service manual has nice round numbers for torque in Newton meters, and it's the conversion to foot pounds that results in the odd numbers. I put in the ft-lb values as printed in the manual. ( as if you could measure the .3 while already putting 162 on there)

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Thanks joatmon, Mark from Hotchkis is looking into this with the engineers.

shibaman and joatmon, thanks for the heads up on this.I just re-torque the strut to steering knuckle at 162.3 lb ft.