front differrential: trouble reinstalling wheel flange bolts

[persistent]

when i removed the bolts connecting the wheel flanges to the front differential, i recall thinking "wow, these are annoying to remove, i wonder how i'm supposed to torque them to spec on reinstall?". the time has arrived and i have spent 60ish minutes searching to no avail to find the trick to torquing these bolts to spec (58 ft-lbs) because the differential just rotates when i apply moderate amounts of torque.

i can easily torque the bolts to roughly hand tight with a socket wrench, but when i apply somewhere north of 30 ft-lbs with a torque wrench, the flange rotates and prevents me from torquing to spec. i would really appreciate it if someone would share the trick or technique to prevent the flange from rotating, so i can torque these bolts to spec.

the service manual gives no hints for how to do this properly.

 

[persistent]

i haven't tried this yet myself, but i believe this video shows the trick at approximately 8:00:

- use a pry bar to hold the flange in place and prevent rotation by inserting it between coils on the spring

i watched a few dozen videos before i found someone who actually documented this. literally every single other video i found would just cut from the wheel flange being disconnected to it being bolted on.

 

[wjburken]

I have used a prybar that was long enough to lock into the studs on the wheel bearing and have the other end rest on the ground keeping it from rotating. Frees up both hands that way. That obviously required the wheel to be off. If the wheel is still on, simply holding the wheel to keep it from rotating with one hand has always given me enough resistance to get the proper torque.

 

[B-train]

Interesting, I've never once torqued those bolts. Usually a 3/8 impact with the correct amount of ugga-duggas does the trick. They are some high quality OEM materials, so I've never been worried.

But, to keep the axle from spinning, you could use a prybar across the wheel studs as a brake. Hold one, pull the torque wrench. Not the greatest, but if you had a helper, or a way to block it to something (floor maybe), then you'd be in business.

 

[persistent]

ok, i confirmed that this short pry bar trick does indeed work, but the explanations are missing a key detail that i had to fiddle for 20-30 min to figure out.

i used a pry bar with a roughly 12" bar, and i oriented it in the plane of the wheel flange, flush against the wheel flange, with the bar pointing up on the side that the rotation is going away from, outside one flange bolt, inside one flange bolt, and against the frame bar above the flange. i'm not much of a "pryer" historically speaking, so this wasn't super obvious.

i was able to torque all the flange bolts to spec without too much trouble, but it did require one hand (left) on the pry bar while torquing the bolt with the other hand (right).