I was putting on a brand new centerlink and trying to "seat the tapers" w/ the nut that came w/ the centerlink. Chiltons calls it the prevailing torque nut. Any way I felt like I got the tapers seated on both the pitman and idler arm, however it says to torque those nuts to 35 ftlb after seating the tapers w/ that special gm j-tool. However the nuts won't torque that much before they start spinning the stud in the centerlink. I also noticed that the studs on my new centerlink have a hole where a cotterpin would go. My question is, should I just use a castle nut and cotter pin for the centerlink to pitman/idler arm joints, or should I buy another set of "prevailing torque nuts" to see if I can actually torque them to the proper torque specs unlike the nuts that came w/ this centerlink. The castle nuts torque to 35 ftlb quite easy. I guess I'm wondering if the castle nut/cotter pin way would screw anything up? Thanks

 

I gots a question kinda like this. can you tighten the nuts on the steering components to take some of the slop out? i dont have much movement and i will be replaceing the whole steering setup once i have my new job but thats gonna be a month or two away so i just want to se if i can for temp just tightem them up a bit?

 

My preferred method is to use an ordinary C-clamp to seat the taper before installing the nut.

Another way to do it, is to use a regular nut to seat the joint, then remove it, and replace with the prevailing torque nut.

Using a castle nut and cotter pin instead of the prevailing torque nut is fine.

 

If the parts were correctly assembled to begin with, probably not.

Reason being, the wear is normally in the ball joint portions of the tie rod ends or center link, and not in the locking taper of the shaft. So tightening the nut only attempts to pull the taper closer together, but doesn't affect the looseness in the pivot ball.

 

ok thx. Looks like im gonna have to wait

 

Great, thats what I wanted to hear, thanks a bunch.