The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline 55 1st 3600 Drum Backing Plate Torque?

I have both the factory assembly manual and the shop manual for the truck (55.1 3600). I cannot find a torque spec for the drum backing plate (where it attaches with 4 bolts to the rear axle with 1/2"-20 grade 8 bolts with lock washers). It seems to me that the torque is pretty high considering that I couldn't turn it by hand and had to jump on a breaker bar to get them loose, but that could be a lot of rust helping to hold on some tight bolts. I doubt the drum backing plates had ever been removed.

I did find the torque specs for the rear axle hub (85-95 ft-lbs), but not the backing plate. One post on here about looking up the torque for a particular bolt (in their case 45 ft-lbs for a 3/8" bolt). In the case of the 1/2"-20 bolt, I found a value of 120 ft-lbs online. This seems like a lot of torque to me, and I was hoping someone else had figured this out already.

Thanks in advance!

I don't think that they published a torque spec for the backing plate bolts. If you use a medium length ratchet with a wrench holding the nut pull it down and snug it up. Don't pull it so tight that the bolt starts to dig into the metal.
If you want to practice getting the feel find a piece of scrap metal and put a hole in it for different size bolts. Then put a bolt and nut through and give it a try. Use a breaker bar and see if you can shear the bolt off. You will soon get a "feel" for what tight is.

Thanks! I was wondering if folks on here went by feel or if I was just missing a torque spec, but I wanted to at least ask since the brakes are a rather important part of the truck's function.

SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) has published standard torque values for just about every common bolt used on vehicles. I believe the 1/2-20 torque spec is somewhere in the 100 ft/lb range. A good rule of thumb that I've used for a lot of years on bolts without a published torque specification is "snug plus one flat". Take up the slack between parts until you can feel the resistance to turning change, and tighten the bolt or nut another 1/6 turn (one flat on a hex-head bolt). This puts a slight amount of "stretch" on the fastener and prevents it from loosening. It works on just about any size fastener.
Jerry