I need to adjust the bands on my 00 durango and I have been able to find the specs for the bands. Everything says that they need to be torqued to 72 inch lbs. Can I just tighten the bands by hand with no ratchet wrench? None of the places around me either they don't loan torque wrenchs, they have no idea what an inch-lb wrench is, and I don't want to buy the torque wrench just for 1 use.I have a ft-lb wrench but I know not to use it.

I'm thinking if I lightly tightened them (I know that 72 inch-lbs or 5 ftlbs is very lightly tightened) and adjusted it will be better adjusted than the 170k miles worth of wear on them.

Opinions?

 

Take it in!

 

But me n my dad love doing things ourselves!! Haha i know what you're getting at. Maybe I'll ask a family friend who is a mechanic if he can get us one for a day. Maybe we might just leave it. The factory setting has gone over 172 and i bet it will keep on going. Although I was hoping to do it while I get all the orange (no longer red) trans fluid out.

 

Just keep the torque wrench for when you get a flat, besides if you can work on your car you'll need it again.

 

Well we have a "real" as I call it torque wrench, and I know that even though the wrench goes down to 5 ftlbs, it is not accurate that low. I have done a frame off restoration and rebuilt engines/ a few trans's and have never needed an inch-lb wrench.

 

O btw by rebuilding trans's I mean manuals. If I rebuilt auto's I guess I would have the inch-lb wrench.

 

Renting one from Auto Zone or something?

The idea with the fam might work. Get everything ready and give em a call. Most of the time you can offer them dinner, a $20, case of beer, bottle, or something. If you can get them under there and have them show you how it's done then you know for next time.

Remember to change the filter and only use the RIGHT fluid.

 

I'm a tool *****...

Personally.. I'd buy the torque wrench. Wouldn't matter I thought that this one job would be the only time that I'd ever use it and it would do nothing else but collect dust in my tool chests along side my bar-style and ratchet-style torque wrenches...

Cause.. I know that invariably.. one day.. something will come up.. and all be damned if I don't need just that one exact tool that I thought I would only use once and never again

I always find that it's so much amazingly more simple to do the job right the first time if you have all the proper tools at your disposal.

Perfect example would be my drum brake spring pliers... Sure, they have a single purpose in life.. and only for one part of the vehicle.. and sure, you could probably use a screw driver to get the return springs back on... maybe you can even do it with out busting more than 3 knuckles and chasing the spring across the garage twice...

But the 8 bucks I spent on the pliers 9 years ago... is well worth the time and lack of aggravation to me

Then again, YMMV

 

Another problem I ran into though was that no stores carry inch lbs wrenches. I would guess that I would have to get one from snap on or another high quality tool supplier. I'll have to see what I can do about this.

Hydra I know all about the correct fluids for our dodges. We got our caravan with its beloved trans and are doing everything to make sure it doesn't blow up on us. (btw the correct fluid is dextron with an additive right?) Haha JUST KIDDING!!! Nothing but Valveoline full synthetic atf+4 for our dodges!

 

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