Took me 3 years to realize I was torquing dryer drum bolts wrong

Been doing dryer repairs for about 4 years now, started as a helper. Last month I had a call where the drum started squeaking 2 weeks after I replaced the belt and idler pulley. Customer was pissed. I pulled it apart and saw the bolts had backed out just enough to let the drum wobble. Turns out I was just snugging them by feel, not using a torque wrench. My old timer boss never mentioned it. Now I always check the manual for torque specs on rotating assemblies. Any of you guys had a basic thing you did wrong for years before someone set you straight?

2 comments

2 Comments

lily_stone7622d ago

Three years? That is a wild amount of time to be doing something wrong without knowing it. I can't believe your boss never once showed you the right way, that's just setting you up for failure from the start. I get that a lot of old timers go by feel, but on something that spins like a dryer drum, a few ft-lbs off can ruin everything. You are lucky you figured it out before you had a part fly off or a real bad injury. That squeaky drum call must have been a real wake up call, but now you will never make that mistake again.

dakota16022d ago

yeah that whole thing about the boss just letting it slide for years hits close to home. i was in a similar spot with a pressure washer at my old shop, thought i was doing the grease job right but it was just caking up inside the bearings. the guy training me was like "you'll feel it when it's good" but that's garbage when you're new and don't know what "good" feels like. once the thing started knocking like a diesel engine i finally tore it down and found all these hard chunks of old grease blocking the ports. swapped to a lighter grease and started counting the pumps instead of going by feel, never had a problem again. sometimes you really do have to just mess it up first to learn the right way, even if it takes way longer than it should.