I had my 113 pound wife stand 3ft away from the axle nut on a piece of black pipe that slide over a 1/2" drive Craftsman breaker bar. (I made her watch her weight very carefully during the week I needed to tighten the axle nut. :)

You're just trying to get the proper leverage. 3ft x 113lb = 339ft lb. If your wife weighs 100 pounds, then she should stand on the breaker bar 3.39 ft away from the axle nut.

--
Jim Stadter

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i believe its Weight X arm = moment

1lb at 1ft is 1 ftlb

so.. when i did mine...
185 lbs standing on at 2ft cheater bar is 370 ftlbs... plus a bounce for good measure. So far so good.

the longer the bar, the less you have to work at getting the torque.

Tony

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I would simply stand with one foot on the end of a 12 inch ratchet , you might need a longer ratchet . Torque is not too critical as long as it is enough , it does not load the bearing simply holds the wheel on , nothing too critical !!

Jim Bailey

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At 05:41 PM 10/26/01, Jim Bailey wrote:
>I would simply stand with one foot on the end of a 12 inch ratchet , you might need a longer ratchet . Torque is not too critical as long as it is enough , it does not load the bearing simply holds the wheel on , nothing too critical !!

I very, very rarely disagree with Jim Bailey - I think most of you know how much I respect his thorough knowledge on the 928 - but I'm afraid that I do have to disagree with him on this one.

The axle nut torque is critical. The rear wheel bearings are a two-row, split-race radial thrust bearing, and depend heavily on the proper axle nut torque to achieve the necessary load-carrying capacity.

For those of you with manuals, the clearest illustration that I have found is the one on the right side of page 44-32 in Volume IV. This illustration shows the wheel hub pressing on the outside of the split inner race, while the stub axle presses outward on the inside of the split race. The combination of the pressures (achieved by the torque on the axle nut) presses the balls outward into the solid outer race. If the torque is insufficient, the wheel hub and axle stub can move slightly, with the misalignment leading to noise and early failure. If the torque is too high, the bearing can be overloaded, leading to early failure.

My suggestion is that you put the axle nuts on at as close to the proper torque as you can. If you leave the center caps off, you can then drive the car to a shop and pay them little or nothing to properly torque the nuts.
It should take less than five minutes to do both sides.

Wally Plumley
928 Specialists

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I have this great cheap Chinese wrench set that I got from Harbor freight. It has a 32mm combo wrench. That thing is so much stronger than the 32mm socket it isn't funny. Put the car in gear, emergency brake, Friend inside standing on brake pedal, chock wheels and put your floor jack under the other end of the wrench on the nut. Pump up and BANG! Someone shared this with the list a few years back. I have been using it ever since. Simple elegant safe way to make big torque. Careful not to lift the car off the
jack stand.

Jay K.