OK, this pertains to good old fashioned Hartzell Constant Speed Props....all of you with fancy lightweight modern props can sit on the sidelines if you wish...
There have been a number of threads on this and other forums about how to torque the prop bolts - those captive nut/bolt things that then take a couple hours to safety wire properly. The problem is that you can't get a regular torque wrench in there, so must folks use or build some sort of extension (I really hope that not to many people pay what Hartzell asks for their special extension!). I used a short combination wrench with a series of nuts an bolts through the closed end to mount the torque wrench on (saw it on someone else's web site).
The funny thing is that when people post this solution, someone else always comes back ad says "just use a crow's-foot on your torque wrench!" Well, I tried that, and it just wouldn't work - but I know the folks that say it have, and are sincere.
SO this weekend we were reinstalling the prop on Louise's -6, and I was slowly torquing it down with my jury-rigged tool, and a neighboring A&P stopped by and says "That looks really neat, but why not just use a crow's-foot on the torque wrench?" I quickly pulled my crow's-foot out of my pocket, put it on my torque wrench, and showed him why not....it would go on the nut. At which point, he said "try my torque wrench!", and pulled out a Snap-On. Sure enough, there was the difference. The head on my Craftsman wrench is large and bulbous compared to the slimline design of the Snap-on, and that allowed the better wrench to fit. SO everyone is right - some wrenches fit, others don't - it's about the brand (or design) that you use.
(As an aside, I am doing some refresher training at work, trying to re-qualify on the Space Station Flight Director console to help those folks out when I can afford time away from Shuttle. I recently had a class on the ISS tool kit. The Shuttle tool kit is about the size of a breadbox - simple, basic, fits most of what we might have to do. The ISS tool kit is considerably beefier - since the ISS never comes home, you have to be able to fix just about anything on orbit. It's the size of a big refrigerator! The hand tools? Looks like they went through the Sap-on catalog, hit "Select All", with a quantity of "1", and placed th order. It's tool heaven....)
There have been a number of threads on this and other forums about how to torque the prop bolts - those captive nut/bolt things that then take a couple hours to safety wire properly. The problem is that you can't get a regular torque wrench in there, so must folks use or build some sort of extension (I really hope that not to many people pay what Hartzell asks for their special extension!). I used a short combination wrench with a series of nuts an bolts through the closed end to mount the torque wrench on (saw it on someone else's web site).
The funny thing is that when people post this solution, someone else always comes back ad says "just use a crow's-foot on your torque wrench!" Well, I tried that, and it just wouldn't work - but I know the folks that say it have, and are sincere.
SO this weekend we were reinstalling the prop on Louise's -6, and I was slowly torquing it down with my jury-rigged tool, and a neighboring A&P stopped by and says "That looks really neat, but why not just use a crow's-foot on the torque wrench?" I quickly pulled my crow's-foot out of my pocket, put it on my torque wrench, and showed him why not....it would go on the nut. At which point, he said "try my torque wrench!", and pulled out a Snap-On. Sure enough, there was the difference. The head on my Craftsman wrench is large and bulbous compared to the slimline design of the Snap-on, and that allowed the better wrench to fit. SO everyone is right - some wrenches fit, others don't - it's about the brand (or design) that you use.
(As an aside, I am doing some refresher training at work, trying to re-qualify on the Space Station Flight Director console to help those folks out when I can afford time away from Shuttle. I recently had a class on the ISS tool kit. The Shuttle tool kit is about the size of a breadbox - simple, basic, fits most of what we might have to do. The ISS tool kit is considerably beefier - since the ISS never comes home, you have to be able to fix just about anything on orbit. It's the size of a big refrigerator! The hand tools? Looks like they went through the Sap-on catalog, hit "Select All", with a quantity of "1", and placed th order. It's tool heaven....)