Fords record on Half Shaft bolts reliable?


Scooter

Scooter

GT Owner
Mark II Lifetime
Apr 15, 2009
168
I was curios..Im about to tear into replacement of my Half Shaft Bolts and washers. I have no record of the first owner of my car having these bolts replaced and when I went to Ford to purchase the bolts they also couldn't tell me if it had been done So after removing the air cleaner tonight and looking at the half shafts (the existing bolts have the torq/star key head and they also have paint markings on them) I was thinking to myself..I hope I don't pull this all apart and find the thick recessed washers telling me this job has been done already??
Thanks for any input on this one!
 
If the hub looks like it hasn't been apart (paint markings line up) then the axle bolts haven't been replaced IMO. It isn't worth the risk not knowing if this key repair hasn't been done.

Good luck

John
 
get the accufab bolts and be done with it, best 200 dollar insurance you can buy!
 
Unfortunately I purchased the Ford bolts about 5 months ago. I guess I'm a real fool waiting till now to change them.:frown
 
Scooter said:
Unfortunately I purchased the Ford bolts about 5 months ago. I guess I'm a real fool waiting till now to change them.:frown
Click to expand...

If you have Ford's 'latest & greatest' kit (not the one which was FIRST offered as a replacement) you should have no pblms at all. Ditto with the Accufab kits (there's NEVER been a faiure of wunna those reported).

The big 'plus' for the Accufab kit is the OUTER bolts are reuseable (if THAT'S ever needed), whereas Ford's replacement kit has the "torque to yield" outer (hub) bolts - as did the factory origionals - which cannot be reused.

:cheers
 
I thought your car was for sale?
 
If no record then IMO they need to be done ... unless they are 12 point ARP aka AccuFab bolts as can be seen

Takes care

Shadowman
 
fjpikul said:
I thought your car was for sale?
Click to expand...

Must be another forum member your thinking of I will never sell her I just love the car, guages and all!
 
Scooter-
If in doubt I agree with the others, swap the bolts out for peace of mind.
And as Shadow states and I agree, the Ford bold kit is just fine and fixes the hydrogen embrittlement problem the original bolts had.

Accufab was first out with new bolts sourced from ARP to address the breakage problem. No one really understood WHY the bolts were breaking as the design loads on these bolts was nowhere close to what it would take to shear them.

Ford spent much time and money to figure out the root cause of the failure to insure their fix would in fact FIX the problem. Which it will...

Either will work fine whether you use the "reuseable" Accufab bolts (gosh I hope to never do this rework again) or the Ford torque-to-yield configuration. (which actually, from an engineering perspective, can be used again)
 
Indy GT said:
Scooter-
If in doubt I agree with the others, swap the bolts out for peace of mind.
And as Shadow states and I agree, the Ford bold kit is just fine and fixes the hydrogen embrittlement problem the original bolts had.

Accufab was first out with new bolts sourced from ARP to address the breakage problem. No one really understood WHY the bolts were breaking as the design loads on these bolts was nowhere close to what it would take to shear them.

Ford spent much time and money to figure out the root cause of the failure to insure their fix would in fact FIX the problem. Which it will...

Either will work fine whether you use the "reuseable" Accufab bolts (gosh I hope to never do this rework again) or the Ford torque-to-yield configuration. (which actually, from an engineering perspective, can be used again)
Click to expand...

I see all the conversation re: the bolts, but note that the washer (in the Ford last kit) is much larger than prior revision levels. I don't know why that is, but shouldn't members be recommending either the latest Ford kit (in its entirety) or the Accufab kit w/the lastest Ford washer?
 
Hi Cobrar!

I know why....

And again either the Accufab kit or the Ford kit work equally well and should be installed as a respected unit. It is not necessary to mix and match.

And too the bolt issue is old-news and many many postings exist on our Forum discussing this early problem. I surmise the recent interest is due to new owners joining our Forum and not being aware of past events. New members should use the "search" function to review this topic. I would guess most all our cars have been modified with the bolt upgrade.

In answer, when Ford was trying to figure out what was causing the bolts to break (typical failure at the bolt shank fillet below the head) at loads way (way again) below the bolt capacity, there was thought that the washer was flexing and imposing bending into the bolt head causing failure. This would align the physical failure results with what "could" cause the failures. A thicker washer would more uniformingly load the bolt head and result in a more tensile-like loading not a head-bending load. The thicker washer was already in the second generation bolt upgrade kit when the root cause of hydrogen embrittlement due to incorrect plating was determined. The actual failure mode had nothing to do with the washer-bolt head interface. Since the thick washer was already in the works for the upgrade kit, they just kept it in the kit. The most important aspect of the gen2 kit are the BOLTS.

Hope this helps explain...
 
Last edited:
Perfect! Thank You for the explanation. I can finally file that one away. :thumbsup
 
Curious - has anyone checked into purchasing the 'AccuFab/ARP' bolts directly from ARP?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Top Bottom