Torquing the plunger knife nuts

In 23 years of servicing our big square baler, I have never used a torque wrench on the plunger knife shear bolts. There isn’t room to get a socket on them. Crowfoot can only take a limited amount of torque being open end, plus the torque number needs to be refigured given the offset of a crowfoot. Never has one come loose. Learn how to use a double wrenching procedure using the next larger wrench size than what fits the fastener, and with modest effort you can get it tight enough with the box end of a wrench.

Rrueda said:

Is there any risk of cracking the blade?

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Not any more than if a torque wrench were used. The main risk of cracking a blade comes from improper shimming under the blade.

slowzuki said:

Torque values on old reused bolts a crap shoot anyways.

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Truth. On top of that, using a torque wrench to determine the axial tension applied to a fastener is not a dramatic amount more accurate than guessing! This per Machinery’s Handbook, 27th edition.