Ubolts under torqued

As some of you know I spend a fair amount of time under Tacomas doing leaf springs, & they're mostly 2nd gens that have never had anything done to their springs till I get ahold of them, from '05 up to a couple 2012's. Now heres the problem, literally every one I've done have had U bolts that I swear could not have been tighter than 25-30 ft.lbs as I demonstrated to the last 2nd gen owner who has had nothing done rear spring wise, I took a standard 3/8" drive ratchet w/19mm socket & with 3 fingers on the ratchet gave a slight pull & it was loose on the U bolt spinning free.

It has become obvious that they are rolling off the assembly line this way in my region of the country, not saying all Tacomas are like this but wherever they build them around my neck of the woods this has been the case. So what I'm asking you to do (if your bored or just want to prove me wrong) is for those with stock leafsprings & you know they've never been messed with, I implore you to throw a socket on yours & try to loosen (or tighten for that matter) posting up your results.

I mean these are supposed to be around 90 ft lbs. IIRC , even if it was 50 it'd still take a good yank to break loose

& again, I find it disturbing that they roll off assembly line this way

 

I can honestly say, mine were loose as hell. I went to Dougs to redo my leaf pack and the Ubolts werent even a problem to get off. If they were torqued, it was at 15lbs at the most

 

Well then my guess of 25-30 lbs is well, a pretty good guess, but I really have a problem with that , there is NO WAY IN HELL I would let any truck leave my place with U bolts torqued to 37 ft lbs regardless of what the manu. manual says personally

 

tight as hell. I got mine torqued to 90ft-lbs

 

haha, no shit huh...

 

As a matter of fact I'd bet that at 37 lbs torque I could pry between the bottom leaf & the perch on axle & see day light, hard to believe Toyota is ok with that...

 

When I got my '06 used in 2010 I re-torqued them. I went off the 90 ft lb spec in my old hilux haynes manual as both are 14mm u-bolts, and all moved, a lot. I almost crapped when I later read that the FSM for the taco says 37 ft-lbs, I agree, its not near enough. IMHO, either a typo or a first stage, and they forgot the second and possibly third stages of the torque procedure???

 

Agreed, I just couldn't let anyone roll out with that little of torque holding something together that is so important & def. would cause additional issues with vibes..

 

The 37 ft lbs in the FSM has to be a typo

 

all that plus common sense would say that its probably better to ver tighten than under tighten...

 

Yep

Unfortunately , because this typo is in the FSM , it also surfaces in Haynes , Chilton , etc

 

yes but on this forum the question is "tight as they should be or loose as hell"

 

that's more of a statement than a question

 

you get the point...

 

actually kinda maybe no

 

Yep, they'll thread stretch just fine on their own

true, now the whole damned thing is subject for debate as to whats "tight as it should be" or "loose as hell"

For what its worth if I can , with 3 fingers & no effort spin these nuts loose (as the way its been) This falls into the "Loose as hell" area IMO..