I had my pitman arm off to pull the steering box and weld up some cracks in the frame there. When I pulled the nut that holds the pitman arm to the steering box I noticed it was just snug, but not torqued. I was able to back it off with a 8in crescent wrench without much effort. I assumed it was probably original and had just loosed a bit over time.
After re-reinstalling everything I re-torqued the nut and split washer to 130ft*lbf per the FSM. After driving a few days the steering felt a little sloppy so I checked things. I noticed a little oil in the spline interface between the pitman and box was being squeezed in and out as the steering was worked back and forth. I don't think this was necessarily the slop, but seemed wrong none the less.
I checked the nut torque and it turned around ~75ft*lbf. I retorqued to 130 Ft*lbf and worked the steering back and forth a few times and checked again. I got about 3 deg of turn on the nut before a click. Did this again and got another 3 deg. Looking at the nut being ~22mm dia I torqued it up to 175 and worked the steering back and forth a few times, again a little motion before a click. I did this about 5 times with the last being torqued to 200ft*lbf. After two workings of the steering it seems to be holding 175ft*lbf.
Does it typically require that much "seating" to get the torque to stop backing off? There wasn't anything in the FSM of seating the splines. I'm assuming they are tapered so the nut takes the slop out of the splines? Otherwise what is the arm bottoming on? There is no shoulder and I cant imagine they would want to bottom it on where the shaft / spline transition is.
I'm a little hesitant to trust this joint given it was backing off after only a few left / right and jiggling of the steering each time. Looking at my dodge 2500 it also uses a 32mm socket and the spec is 185ft*lbf. Given the socket size I'm assuming the thread sizes are close between the dodge and land cruiser. Also 130ft*lbf seems a bit low for the thread size / comparing to dodge.
After re-reinstalling everything I re-torqued the nut and split washer to 130ft*lbf per the FSM. After driving a few days the steering felt a little sloppy so I checked things. I noticed a little oil in the spline interface between the pitman and box was being squeezed in and out as the steering was worked back and forth. I don't think this was necessarily the slop, but seemed wrong none the less.
I checked the nut torque and it turned around ~75ft*lbf. I retorqued to 130 Ft*lbf and worked the steering back and forth a few times and checked again. I got about 3 deg of turn on the nut before a click. Did this again and got another 3 deg. Looking at the nut being ~22mm dia I torqued it up to 175 and worked the steering back and forth a few times, again a little motion before a click. I did this about 5 times with the last being torqued to 200ft*lbf. After two workings of the steering it seems to be holding 175ft*lbf.
Does it typically require that much "seating" to get the torque to stop backing off? There wasn't anything in the FSM of seating the splines. I'm assuming they are tapered so the nut takes the slop out of the splines? Otherwise what is the arm bottoming on? There is no shoulder and I cant imagine they would want to bottom it on where the shaft / spline transition is.
I'm a little hesitant to trust this joint given it was backing off after only a few left / right and jiggling of the steering each time. Looking at my dodge 2500 it also uses a 32mm socket and the spec is 185ft*lbf. Given the socket size I'm assuming the thread sizes are close between the dodge and land cruiser. Also 130ft*lbf seems a bit low for the thread size / comparing to dodge.
