Correct procedure for torquing front wishbones

[124spiderman]

Hi there.
I've read & heard lots of conflicting info about the correct procedure when tightening the A-Arm bolts (upper & lower wishbones)
One manual recommends that the car has 2 persons and 60kk luggage when tightening, others don't state it.
Does anyone have the true and proven method. I'm sure like myself lots will benefit from it.

TORQUE SETTINGS: with car suspension compressed
upper A arm some manuals state 65ft lb
bottom arm is 72ftlb in all my manuals.

Thanks in advance.

[vandor]

It would make sense to load it how it is most likely to be loaded when driven.

[RRoller123]

I did mine loaded with 2 adults, and had the front a-arms on jack stands at the lower ball joint position, to simulate tires being on, as you can't really get at it with the tires on. We also discovered awhile back (there is a thread somewhere here on the forum on this) that the recent manufacturing run of upper a-arms had slightly long bolts, which resulted in the torque setting being reached before the bolt was actually fully tight across the shock tower. It is easy to see if this exists after you tighten everything down, I found it by checking the bolts about a week after install (I usually do this as I am a very cautious fellow by nature) and found that the torque was right but the bolts could spin pretty easily. The solution was to add three SS washers to the stack on one side so that the nut didn't bottom out on the thread bottom before the proper torque setting was reached. Csaba and Ramzi did some research and found the bolts were slightly different in the current run and issued an advisory on all this. Good fellows, God bless 'em.

[4uall]

This may help as well

http://mirafiori.com/faq/content/spider ... l_Arms.htm

http://mirafiori.com/faq/content/elisusp/elisusp.html

[RRoller123]

That is an excellent data page!

[81SPIDERMATT]

i did mine 65 on top and 72 bottom..... jacked the car high enough with the tires on and placed the tires on cement blocks and then lowered the car onto the blocks so i could get room to tighten everything.... had my friend sit in the driver seat and put my dog in the passenger seat and put 60 pounds in the trunk... also did the same thing at the alignment shop

[4uall]

Anyone know if/what these need to be torqued?

[4uall]

Anyone?

[sweet124]

From my experience they don't need to be torqued guest a good tightening.

[124spiderman]