Again: Check your Knuckle-Nuts ;-)

[COS80]

I'm super pleased with my ARPs and locknuts from Front Range. I painted them with thread marker and they've never moved, never needed retorquing, in over a year of hard off roading. I check them every time I go under the truck, and they're always right where I left them.

 

[Broski]

I'm super pleased with my ARPs and locknuts from Front Range. I painted them with thread marker and they've never moved, never needed retorquing, in over a year of hard off roading. I check them every time I go under the truck, and they're always right where I left them.

I have run the same for many years.
I do extreme wheeling and run 39s, I check them regularly and have never found them loose.
I have occasionally found one that would budge a little bit.

 

[Broski]

I'm super pleased with my ARPs and locknuts from Front Range. I painted them with thread marker and they've never moved, never needed retorquing, in over a year of hard off roading. I check them every time I go under the truck, and they're always right where I left them.

Are you sure there lock nut ?

I have The ARPs from Front Range but without lock nuts.

I did get them before Front Range was bought out by brand X

 

[cruiseroutfit]

...I did get them before Front Range was bought out by brand X

News to me. Did Brian sell?

 

[Broski]

News to me. Did Brian sell?

I may be mistaking ?

 

[cruiseroutfit]

I may be mistaking ?

I had not heard that. He was still the owner as recent of Cruise Moab last year. I'll have to ask some of the guys at our shop, they work with them more frequently than I do.

 

[COS80]

Are you sure there lock nut ?

I have The ARPs from Front Range but without lock nuts.

I did get them before Front Range was bought out by brand X

ARP Steering Arm Knuckle Studs

Keep your steering attached securely today, and prevent damage to your steering arms and knuckles with Front Range Off-Road Fabrication's stud kit!

frontrangeoffroadfab.com

The kits include 8 studs, 8 class 10 nylon locking nuts, and a small tube of red thread lock. The studs must be thread locked into the knuckle to prevent loosening, and the locking nuts keep everything tight on the outside side for a perfect setup!

 

[Marvelicious]

ARP Steering Arm Knuckle Studs

Keep your steering attached securely today, and prevent damage to your steering arms and knuckles with Front Range Off-Road Fabrication's stud kit!

frontrangeoffroadfab.com

At the price, that seems like a bargain for peace of mind if you wheel. I'll have to add those to the list.

 

[MissahPapaJ]

think everybody’s over thinking it. When god blesses you with 5 extra threads you just slap a lock not on that hoe.

 

[Rifleman]

I just went out in my driveway and checked the torque on all of my nuts, As luck would have it mine were all still nice and tight at 71 FT pounds. I've added a few photos of the torque wrench setup that i use. I know that the back nuts can be a real pain to get a socket on if you still have the brake splash shield in place.

I use a small head 3/8 inch drive, 100 FT pound Snap On torque wrench with a 3/8 inch, to 1/2 adapter, along with a 1/2 inch drive ring wrench socket. That ring wrench socket is kind of like a crows foot, but it's a complete 12 point box end crows foot socket. It was made by a company called Britool out of England. The nice thing about this combination it allows you to use a torque wrench to get an accurate torque value when tightening those 2 rear nuts.

 

[landtank]

At the price, that seems like a bargain for peace of mind if you wheel. I'll have to add those to the list.

I wouldn't use that kit. The issue isn't the nuts loosening it's the studs backing out. This kit has you using red lock tight to secure the stud. This will surely stop the stud from backing out of the knuckle, however, should you shear a stud it's very likely you won't be able to extract the broken piece from the knuckle and need a new knuckle. At least that was my situation on a customer truck. And yes I spent an hour with an acetylene torch trying to crystalize the lock tight to no avail.

 

[Broski]

I just went out in my driveway and checked the torque on all of my nuts, As luck would have it mine were all still nice and tight at 71 FT pounds. I've added a few photos of the torque wrench setup that i use. I know that the back nuts can be a real pain to get a socket on if you still have the brake splash shield in place.

I use a small head 3/8 inch drive, 100 FT pound Snap On torque wrench with a 3/8 inch, to 1/2 adapter, along with a 1/2 inch drive ring wrench socket. That ring wrench socket is kind of like a crows foot, but it's a complete 12 point box end crows foot socket. It was made by a company called Britool out of England. The nice thing about this combination it allows you to use a torque wrench to get an accurate torque value when tightening those 2 rear nuts.
View attachment 4072877
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IMO your not going to get accurate torque values using that offset crows foot socket.

 

[george_tlc]

IMO your not going to get accurate torque values using that offset crows foot socket.

Actually, with the foot at 90deg it adds no 'length' to the lever arm, so the torque reading will be unchanged. Plenty of videos out there that cover the math etc.

To nit-pick it may not be 90deg you need to set, but the angle that keeps the length of the center of the crow's foot to the pivot point the same as the length from the center of the torque wrench square drive to the pivot point. Maybe 91deg or 92 or ... But 90 is close enough

cheers,
george.

 

[Rifleman]

IMO your not going to get accurate torque values using that offset crows foot socket.

As long as my ring socket is kept stationary at a right angle to the center line of my torque wrench (see my first photo) you will get the exact torque that the torque wrench is set at.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Interestingly, long before these were offered as an aftermarket, there were OE Toyota solutions on 20 Series Land Cruiser axles. I’ll share some pics of the samples we have at the Land Cruiser Heritage Museum.

There is this offering that just slips down over the nuts themselves and keeps them from rotating, I’ll post some pics when I find em

Pics from the museum of the 20 Series solutions, some factory Toyota, some not so factory

And my favorite?

 

[Marvelicious]

I wouldn't use that kit. The issue isn't the nuts loosening it's the studs backing out. This kit has you using red lock tight to secure the stud. This will surely stop the stud from backing out of the knuckle, however, should you shear a stud it's very likely you won't be able to extract the broken piece from the knuckle and need a new knuckle. At least that was my situation on a customer truck. And yes I spent an hour with an acetylene torch trying to crystalize the lock tight to no avail.

So, I'm not doubting your experience - obviously you know what you're doing and I'm not questioning what happened, but... As I understand it, Toyota's replacement studs intended for the 70 series come already doped with loctite. Not sure what grade they used, but maybe red is a little too strong?

Either way, living here in the coastal PNW, the ground is soggy at least 5 months out of the year, and I'm honest enough with myself to know how likely I am to procrastinate checking those nuts in the rainy season (surely it can wait until the ground doesn't go squish when I walk across it). I think I'd prefer to risk a possible issue of a stronger-than-factory stud shearing and being impossible to remove, balanced against the far more likely issue of loose studs failing. That's just where my personal calculus comes out on the issue.

 

[landtank]

You might consider my kit. While the MUD group seems to want to try and lock the nuts in place, face groups have installed a lot of kits. They work.

 

[Broski]

While I thought I had this kit I’m sure it’s different it is ARP hardware but there’s no lock tight and no locking nuts.
For reasons mentioned I would not want that.

 

[MissahPapaJ]

I just went out in my driveway and checked the torque on all of my nuts, As luck would have it mine were all still nice and tight at 71 FT pounds. I've added a few photos of the torque wrench setup that i use. I know that the back nuts can be a real pain to get a socket on if you still have the brake splash shield in place.

I use a small head 3/8 inch drive, 100 FT pound Snap On torque wrench with a 3/8 inch, to 1/2 adapter, along with a 1/2 inch drive ring wrench socket. That ring wrench socket is kind of like a crows foot, but it's a complete 12 point box end crows foot socket. It was made by a company called Britool out of England. The nice thing about this combination it allows you to use a torque wrench to get an accurate torque value when tightening those 2 rear nuts.
View attachment 4072877
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View attachment 4072881

I have those but they’re snap-on, I could have saved money by buying something like that to be honest ( all those torque adapters look like they were made in the same factory ) long story short, if you don’t have a set of those style adapters you’re 100% missing out when working on almost anything with weird angles.

 

[Inukshuk]

And thus you dont achieve the desired torque. Also think twice about installing products made by someone who exit scammed this community out of 100000$

Since he’s out of business, I don’t think we have to worry too much about people buying from him in the future.

The point of me sharing the pictures is anybody who has old Wits End nut huggers installed might think about bending one of the tabs flat and checking torque and or replacing with flat washers and or replacing with new Delta nut huggers.

There are many ways to deal with this particular issue, some of them are even good! My experience in 26 years of driving my 80 on 33’s with plenty of wheeling and plenty of trail time with other 80s, tightening others’ studs, and once doing the repair (which included drilling out a broken stud) on somebody else’s truck at 10,000 feet, is OEM studs installed with clean threads and nuts torqued properly on 33 to 35 inch tires don’t fail. For the guy we fixed on the side of the mountain when we asked him about torquing after his recent axle work he said “what’s torque?”

I can see the logic of staying away from red Loctite for the difficulty of getting a broken stud out. Blue Loctite wood probably accomplish the same objective which includes sealing the threads.

Weather permitting, I am going to check the condition of Delta nut huggers I recently installed on another 80. They already have a few thousand miles on them.