Safety Tech Tips - Wheel Torque

[JoeP]

I worked for a couple years in a refinery with all sorts of fancy machinery, pumps, and compressors.  We were told exactly the opposite - use copper-based anti-seize on every screw and bolt on which we did not use LocTite.  They said that torque settings on dry bolts would not be accurate. 

They said that a bolt or nut does not move until you apply a fixed threshold of extra torque.  That is,if  a nut is already at 90 FtLb, it will not move when you apply 91 FtLb.  It will only move with, say, 97 FtLb.

We were told that the torque threshold to get dry nuts & bolts moving was much higher than when antisieze was used.  Therefore, going from 90 to 95 FtLb was difficult.  The nut might not move until 105.

Anyway, that's what I was told -- in a very loud voice by a big guy with a wrench in his hand.