I gave up on the old school way of torquing bleed valves after a long night shift

For years I followed the book and used a crows foot with a torque wrench on every single bleed valve, which added like 15 minutes per engine. About 8 months ago on a Cessna 172, I watched a senior guy just do it by feel with a standard wrench and checked it with a calibrated torque wrench after. He was dead on every time. Now I do the same initial snug by hand, verify with the torque wrench once, and move on. It cuts the job time in half with zero callbacks. Anyone else find some book procedures are just overkill for simple tasks?

2 comments

2 Comments

karen_shah568d ago

By feel" works until you get a valve body made of softer aluminum.

hugo7518d ago

That's a solid point about softer metals. It got me wondering if the real issue is the torque spec itself. Some of those numbers feel crazy low for a part that needs a solid seal against pressure. Maybe the book is right for the wrong reason, and we should be looking at the whole fitting design instead of just the wrench method.