Island Time 1,239 Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 I was just reading some stuff about Keel bolts on another site, thought Id post my understanding of them here as well; Here is a link to torque specs for bolts http://www.engineershandbook.com/Tables/torque3.htm According to this, SS 1" should be 259 ft/lbs. Pretty hard to do that in limited space often available. If your bolts are bigger, it will be about as tight as you can get them. If the bolt fixing can crush the structure, then IMO it is not strong enough - the keel will put more stress on it than you will. The plates and washers should distribute the load sufficiently to prevent crushing in a correctly torqued and designed system. With bolts over 1 1/4 inch, you probably cannot over tighten them with normal hand tools... If you notice the plates crushing anything, stop and rectify the issue!! Comments anyone? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Black Panther 1,592 Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 We hauled a couple of weeks ago. Put a socket on the nuts, slipped a bit of SS tube about 3 ft long over the handle and gave it everything I could. Moved one out of 16 about 1/8 of a turn - happy. Also pulled two chainplate bolts - they looked brand new, put them back in and stopped looking. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Island Time 1,239 Posted June 10, 2015 Author Share Posted June 10, 2015 Sounds good BP Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Steve Pope 243 Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 sometimes it is necessary to loosen a nut a little and then re-tighten. There is often some stiction between the bolt and nut. Once the bolt is loosened and then drawn up again it will often tighten past the point. Not always but around 50% of the time. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Dambo 44 Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 A couple of years ago I removed, re-welded, re-sealed and re-mounted the keel on my old Spencer (never, ever do I want to do that again) I made up some heavy steel plates to go under the bolts and spread the load (40 year old plywood takes up moisture no matter how carefully the boat's been maintained - and mine hadn't) I borrowed an engineer mates 1" gear and then put a bit of pipe on the end of the bar, bolts went in with some techie grease he gave me that was somewhat specific for the job - he calculated what I was putting on them bolts and estimated that I was close to stretch-point. That Keel and the bits of boat it's attached to will still be there when the rest has broken up and rotted away. As I recall, the calculation was about 100 ft/lbs. on 5/8" bolts, tightened again at 1 month and 6 month. Steve P, yes, the advice was back it off first then tighten, each time gaining about half a turn more (whereas none if I just tried to tighten them straight) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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