Over-torqued an important nut, should I be worried?

[Chinchilla641]

Soo I made a mistake torquing a pretty crucial nut yesterday and was wondering if anyone knows how this would affect the parts involved. I have been replacing the rear right axle (along with the bearing, hub, rotor, shoes, caliper, etc.) on my 96 328i cabrio for the past few weekends. Last night, I erroneously torqued the axle nut to the M3's spec of 221ft/lbs. The spec for my 328i should have been 184 ft/lbs instead. Is this as simple a fix as replacing the axle nut with a new, properly torqued one? I don't mind spending a few bucks on a nut but it would suck if I damaged the axle (or parts in between) in some way. Any insight from those of you that have seen this before onto how big of a snafu this was would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance guys and gals.

[ross1]

Back it off and re-torque

[Eric93se]

You didn't damage anything, don't sweat it

[bmwdirtracer]

There's not a problem at all. Every pro tech I know uses the same torque for every axle nut : Rat-atat-atat-atat with the 1/2 drive impact gun.

[ross1]

There's not a problem at all. Every pro tech I know uses the same torque for every axle nut : Rat-atat-atat-atat with the 1/2 drive impact gun.

So, you're "that guy".

[bmwdirtracer]

YUP.

C'mon man, that's a mega nut.

Sure, I use #3 out of 4 settings. And then I stake it, with a new nut.

Note that I do the absolute same with my own cars, which I use on the race track.


And note that if you use your torque wrench, the nut will end up in exactly the same spot, if you hit it with the gun afterwards. TRY IT.

Note please that I faithfully torque EVERY single wheel bolt, every bolt inside the engine.

[Shawnk111]

Shouldn't be serious, unless you over torqued it to the point that it stripped the nut or damaged the threads or something. As said before, I would just back it off and re torque

[ross1]

YUP.

C'mon man, that's a mega nut.

.

I know and certainly get it BUT I am one of the poor slobs that doesn't have a mega impact so when encountering stuff that has been over tightened struggles with hand tools. I always win(except one time, and a big impact failed there too)but am too old for dangling from a length of pipe over a breaker bar.

[bmwdirtracer]

Let me clarify: I do not kill the nut. I am exceptionally familiar with the torques my guns deliver. For an axle nut, I use setting 3....that's about 225 lb/ft, verified by calibrated torque wrench every now and then.

I use my big electric gun for wheel nuts too....until it hits....and then I put the car down, and use my split beam SnapOn torque wrench, which generally remains set to 85 ft/lbs, although I turn it up to 110 for the big X5 bolts. Every single wheel nut I touch is hand torqued.

I too have experienced the results of buttholes who use a 3/4 drive gun to put on wheelnuts and such.....and leave me to break the wheel lock key off. I do OWN a 3/4 drive SnapOn gun, and a new Mac 1/2 drive 1200 lb/ft gun, too.....but I really don't use them much, because they're pretty much reserved for REMOVING grossly overtorqued crank bolts....oh, and VW/Audi front axle bolts which use a 17mm hex socket, and are usually rusted and seized into the axle, with 2" of thread .

Not to worry, Ross, my torques will not be excessive for the fastener in question, I promise you.