Old timer at the shop set me straight on torque seal application

Had a lead inspector at Delta pull me aside last month after my shift. He pointed out I was putting torque seal on before torquing the fastener instead of after. Told me I was just painting marks instead of actually verifying anything. Changed my whole process that day and been doing it right ever since. Anybody else had a simple correction like that totally change how they work?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_phoenix2mo ago

Hold up. I'm actually gonna push back on this one a bit. In my experience, putting the torque seal on before torquing can work just fine if you know what you're doing and use it as a visual reference for final position, not a verification of torque. Telling a guy he's "just painting marks" is a bit dramatic, honestly. The real point of torque seal is to show if something moved after the fact, and whether you put it on before or after the final torque, you can still see if the fastener rotated. Also, there are plenty of torque-to-yield fasteners where you're more concerned about angle than final torque anyway, and the seal is just an extra check. Your mileage may vary, but this sounds like one of those "this is how we've always done it" rules that gets passed down without much thought.

uma_nguyen242mo ago

Putting it on after means you're actually marking the real final position instead of guessing where it ended up.

the_olivia6d ago

Whoa, okay hold up, I gotta call this out. I think putting it on BEFORE torquing is just asking for trouble and you're missing the whole point. The inspector was RIGHT to tell that guy he was just painting marks, because if you slap it on BEFORE, you're basically guessing where it'll end up and hoping it matches your line. How do you actually know the fastener didn't spin a little more or less than you thought unless you're marking the real final position AFTER you've set the torque? Even with torque-to-yield stuff, you STILL mark after the angle turn so you know if it backed off later, not before. So tell me, what's the actual benefit of doing it before besides saving three seconds of your time?