Interesting info on lock washers

[William McCormick]

And if you look at the second test with the lock washer under the bolt, it did stop it from coming out that is what it is supposed to do. If it loosens the teeth are designed to grab and hold the bolt from coming out. You need to know what the application is for. Head bolts are designed to stretch and keep tension on the bolt so it does not come loose, you would not want a lock washer because of the high torque and because the engine would fail before the lock washer did its job.

On a piece of machinery that runs all the time, you can get vibration that will loosen bolts, bolts will stretch bolts will wear, so they put a lock washer in there and they keep the bolt from coming out hopefully till the next maintenance cycle. If you really do not want a nut to come off you need to drill and cotter pin or you have to drill and wire tie it like they do on aircraft parts.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[William McCormick]

You have to admit that there's been a sea change in truck bearings. The old school approach was allowing for about .0015 endplay on a tapered roller bearing. Today, we're looking at pre assembled cartridge type stuff from what I hear. They took the skill out of the mix I guess.

I don't find the locking methods on my Class 8 stuff anything to write home about. It's standard for the time it was built. The wheels don't fall off if you know what you're doing. Which is the rub............... a lot of morons don't know what they're doing.

You are right sam, the young kids were not over-torquing the bearing spinning it at least a full turn, to get it to seat properly, and then backing off and putting it under proper torque. So a person would leave a service center and hit a bump and properly seat the bearing that was now extremely loose. That bearing would often take out the spindle in one trip if heavily loaded. It is the dark ages, lego land.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[whtbaron]

I gave up on split locks years ago when changing cultivator shovels... they would spit out and let the bolts come loose after a couple days in the field. Now I rarely use them unless it's a special situation like valve covers or manifold bolts that come with them on.

[William McCormick]

I gave up on split locks years ago when changing cultivator shovels... they would spit out and let the bolts come loose after a couple days in the field. Now I rarely use them unless it's a special situation like valve covers or manifold bolts that come with them on.

The bolts were probably too small for a lock washer being exposed to the stress they were under.

A double nut has never failed me. A nut and acorn nut has also never failed me.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[whtbaron]

Yes, in that application I've gone to flat washers and double nuts. The double nut serves 2 purposes. It locks the first nut from coming loose and protects the thread from damage so you can take them apart again when the shovels are worn out.

[Lis2323]

A double nut has never failed me. A nut and acorn nut has also never failed me.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

Nothing says "I actually give a sh*t" more than using acorn nuts on a project.




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[whtbaron]

I don't think the cultivator shovels care that much...

[Lis2323]

I don't think the cultivator shovels care that much...

But the bolt threads would be protected from caked on dirt and abrasion


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[jpump5]

“Ny-locks when hot spin right off”…
How hot?
Some of the ones that hold raincaps on exhaust stacks
of diesel driven equipment get pretty hot, with a lot of
vibration and I’ve never seen one spin itself off.

[William McCormick]

Nothing says "I actually give a sh*t" more than using acorn nuts on a project.




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When I make a trapeze out of Unistrut/Kindorf, to hang an air handler or piping, I quickly throw some stainless steel acorn nuts on the protruding threaded rod that supports the trapeze. It has saved me countless numbers of injury and probably others too. I have a scar on my back from a razor-sharp threaded rod, that I couldn't see because of a hard had the safety officer made me wear. After that, he didn't make us wear them anymore while we were walking under the units hung in a 6-foot high rotunda. With the hard hat, you couldn't see above you when you are hunched over. So although going under the unit you could see where the rods were coming out you could not. Since we had to do this perhaps 50 times I told him in a polite way that it would be more dangerous for him if we had to wear them. In ten minutes two guys had gotten cut up the rest of the day nothing.

I used to get 3/8" acorn nuts for under $0.50 cents apiece. I used to get 1/2" acorn nuts for under $1.00 each. About two months ago I realized my stock had run out, so I went to ACE just to buy six of them until I could get a whole box from a friend. The 1/2" acorn nuts were $4.89 cents apiece. You would think if OSHA really cared they would make that a mandatory thing to do when hanging pipe and appliances with threaded rods. But they do not really care. Today with so much wiring in the ceilings you can no longer wear a hardhat it just won't fit through the small openings of crisscrossing pipe, control, fire alarm, and communication wiring, as well as the machinery. When in a drop ceiling you have the black iron and pencil rods to deal with, it is like mid-evil torture of the dark ages up there.

I just checked on the internet and you can get 1/2" stainless steel acorn nuts for $1.10 apiece. They are probably not the deep ones that I normally get but to be honest they will work well.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[William McCormick]

“Ny-locks when hot spin right off”…
How hot?
Some of the ones that hold raincaps on exhaust stacks
of diesel driven equipment get pretty hot, with a lot of
vibration and I’ve never seen one spin itself off.

Racing engines caused a couple of failures of the NY-locks. Some of that stuff glows red hot when they are going all out with some wild vibration.

One time we were putting a part on, and no one knew how it went, so we put it on took it off put it on, and took it off the NY-locks were finished, the heat of using an impact taking them on and off toasted them nicely.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[John Baptist]

Personally, I've never had much use for split lockwashers except for "soft" joints using gaskets, etc. the spring tension seems to help hold the clamp load. In a "hard" joint even a properly torqued plain nut with hardened washers is better. Flange nuts and bolts are the stuff for truck frames, beaten down good and tight they will never loosen.
In the 80's I worked for a company that did plenty of heavy equipment work, our shop manager was a guy with a degree and zero real time experience. He caught 3 of us installing cutting edges on a D9 dozer blade and flipped out because we weren't using split locks. I personally grabbed his azz by the lapel and dragged him to the front office to see the owner, "He goes or I go" was the discussion... I explained the problem we were having in an hour long powwow, The boss offered to let the guy try laying on his back torching out junk blade frogs but he wasn't having any of that, us guys with experience were the problem according to Mr. Degree. The real suck part was I had to do his job starting the next day.

HAHA careful what you wish for! that's a great story

[idacal]

I have used these https://www.nord-lock.com/en-us/nord...SAAEgILfvD_BwE on i had tried everything to keep the bolts in this was on a tophead motor, it was vibrating loose, these have not came loose in 800 hours usually it was every few days up there tightening bolts

[Slowxj]

May be worth the viewing...

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[William McCormick]

May be worth the viewing...

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The torque has to do with the application, it will always be easier to open a bolt than tighten a bolt, that is just reality, baring corrosion, heat damage, deformation, or contamination. I am not sure what the guy is trying to prove. No lock nut or lock washer can keep a bolt or nut from coming loose. But a split lock washer can keep the bolt from falling out till the next maintenance cycle. The current maintenance cycle is created by noting when you find a loose bolt or nut, and then whatever the cycle was before you shorten it until you get a moderately safe maintenance cycle. If you are using any kind of locknut, or lock washer and it can come loose in your application, you are not dealing with anything critical. The right-sized bolt will keep things from coming loose, in racing and aircraft where you are trying to use lighter smaller fasteners, you cotter pin, you wire tie nuts and bolts so although they may loosen they will not fall out. but if you just use the right-sized bolt it would not come out. All the grade five and grade eight is to hide the bolts are too small for the application.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[walker]

They just need to use whatever brand split lock that is on my trailer ball mounts. Those thing are locked! They dig out some metal when they come apart!

[mrmikey]

May be worth the viewing...

It probably would be, I've watch similar videos 'bout them but that guy Ave I think he calls himself, drives me up the wall with his voice, stupid names and attitude.............Mike

[Slowxj]

They just need to use whatever brand split lock that is on my trailer ball mounts. Those thing are locked! They dig out some metal when they come apart!

I use 5/8s hardware every day and this happens to me every day just as you're describing...

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[steve45]

I can't remember the last time I used a split lock washer. If I use a lock washer, I use an internal tooth shakeproof washer. My preference is a nylon or all-metal locknut, or Loctite.