E-socket. Why?!

[coolwind57]

I am kicking myself for not replacing the E-socket bolts with hex heads the last time I separated my engine from the bell housing.   I had to fish an E-socket with 5 ratchet extensions from the back. 

 

Why on Earth did Jeep use these E-socket bolts along the top of the bell housing? 

 

[ghetdjc320]

I have to ask, did you have an external torx wrench or socket you used? Those e torx head bolts can be handy as they have good contact area for the appropriate socket and tend to not slip. If you use a regular socket on them you will have problems as you have so little contact area. 

[coolwind57]

19 minutes ago, ghetdjc320 said:

I have to ask, did you have an external torx wrench or socket you used? Those e torx head bolts can be handy as they have good contact area for the appropriate socket and tend to not slip. If you use a regular socket on them you will have problems as you have so little contact area. 

Pardon my poor choice of nomenclature above...should had said "E-torx bolts" instead of "E-socket bolts."

 

Yes, I used an external torx (E-torx) 3/8-drive socket.  An E-torx wrench would had likely been better to use in this case.  

 

This Jeep is the only time I'd ever seen these bolts used on automobiles.

 

[ghetdjc320]

3 hours ago, coolwind57 said:

Pardon my poor choice of nomenclature above...should had said "E-torx bolts" instead of "E-socket bolts."

 

Yes, I used an external torx (E-torx) 3/8-drive socket.  An E-torx wrench would had likely been better to use in this case.  

 

This Jeep is the only time I'd ever seen these bolts used on automobiles.

 

I deal with them frequently in the marine world in their stainless or galvanized forms. The heads tend to be undersized relative to the bolt thread size but normally that is due to space constraints. One can usually fit a smaller wrench/socket than would otherwise be allowed for the size of the threads. Not sure if that’s what Jeep had in mind but I would imagine so as they were such penny pinchers and those bolts cost a few extra cents. I can’t say I’ve come across a ratcheting e-torx wrench that isn’t some sort of “universal” box style wrench. Would probably work well, though I’m guessing the actual ratcheting mechanism would make the head to big to fit the space around the bolt head 

[pizzaman09]

I generally like external torx as they tend to allow a bit more misalignment of the socket in tight situations.  

[coolwind57]

13 hours ago, ghetdjc320 said:

I deal with them frequently in the marine world in their stainless or galvanized forms. The heads tend to be undersized relative to the bolt thread size but normally that is due to space constraints. One can usually fit a smaller wrench/socket than would otherwise be allowed for the size of the threads. Not sure if that’s what Jeep had in mind but I would imagine so as they were such penny pinchers and those bolts cost a few extra cents. I can’t say I’ve come across a ratcheting e-torx wrench that isn’t some sort of “universal” box style wrench. Would probably work well, though I’m guessing the actual ratcheting mechanism would make the head to big to fit the space around the bolt head 

Yea, I've only seen box end, non-ratcheting.  I am certainly not putting them back on.  We'll go with a standard hex.

[75sv1]

I took out most of the interior in my Chevy Avalanche. It used the tork head nuts to bolt down the seats. Also, I remember them  for exhaust bolts on Ford Contours.  See the females for seat belts, on XJs and other vehicles. 

[cruiser54]

The most important thing to remember about those 2 bolts is loosen/remove them FIRST. BEFORE loosening any other fasteners that hold the trans to the block. 

[pizzaman09]

14 hours ago, 75sv1 said:

I took out most of the interior in my Chevy Avalanche. It used the tork head nuts to bolt down the seats. Also, I remember them  for exhaust bolts on Ford Contours.  See the females for seat belts, on XJs and other vehicles. 

BMW likes to use them in their engines.  Head bolts, rod cap bolts, cam cap bolts ...  Oddly they only use them internal to the engine, externally everything is hex head.

 

I read into the torx bit for work once, they can take more torque than a reasonably similarly sized hex Allen head.

[ghetdjc320]

10 hours ago, pizzaman09 said:

they can take more torque than a reasonably similarly sized hex Allen head.

Indeed they can. They are actually a clever design imo. I think too many people start off with a standard 6 point hex socket and round off the bolt heads. Kind of like 12 point heads, with the accompanying 12 point socket, you can really apply some torque to them. Far more than the standard 6 point. There’s a reason high torque components tend to use spline drives. 

[gogmorgo]

Yeah I really can’t complain about Torx fasteners either. Seems like the biggest issue is them packing full of stuff, or people trying to use the wrong tool on them. I much prefer them over Allen heads or Phillips. They’ve got an edge over the Robertson as well. And the e-Torx don’t round off anywhere near as bad as hex heads do. 

[coolwind57]

I wouldn't necessarily disagree that they may have higher torque specs than hex or allen heads.  Still don't know why Jeep used them along top of the bell housing when standard hex heads work fine for this purpose and are a heck of a lot easier to use without non-standard tools. 

[AZJeff]

For those who may not have studied the shape of a Torx bolt:

 

the “star” shape you see is actually an “involute spline” tooth pattern.  This is similar to gear teeth and to splines on things line drive shafts.

 

this shape of “tooth” will transmit torque MUCH more evenly across the driving surface of the fastener.  This results in less tool wear on repeated driving of fasteners, and less wear on the fastener head when removed/installed repeatedly.  

[gogmorgo]

8 hours ago, coolwind57 said:

I wouldn't necessarily disagree that they may have higher torque specs than hex or allen heads.  Still don't know why Jeep used them along top of the bell housing when standard hex heads work fine for this purpose and are a heck of a lot easier to use without non-standard tools. 

I’ve heard people say it was for clearance, the socket is smaller compared to a hex head that would hold the same torque. But that’s just speculation. We can speculate all we want but you’d still have to talk to the engineers who made the decision to find out their reasoning. And it had to have been at least a halfway decent reason because they got approval from the bean counters to use the more expensive bolts, at a company that was notorious for cost cutting. 

But at the end of the day it’s still a standard fastener, and not even a particularly uncommon one. You can buy sockets for them everywhere automotive tools are sold. But I won’t disagree that it’s annoying to need an extra set of sockets. The 2.5 starter uses e-Torx bolts as well, but I don’t know off the top of my head if they’re the same size. I bought a set of Torx and e-Torx sockets for $20 at Canadian Tire a long time ago and for the half dozen times I’ve needed them on my personal jobs they’ve more than sufficed. A similar set to what I have is currently $35. I’m sure you could also buy an individual socket dirt cheap. Just do that before stripping them out with the wrong tool.  

[Ωhm]

2 minutes ago, gogmorgo said:

And it had to have been at least a halfway decent reason because they got approval from the bean counters to use the more expensive bolts, at a company that was notorious for cost cutting. 

 

I think it had something to do with assembly. Ease of mounting to fastener. Quicker for the robots.

[AZJeff]

1 hour ago, Ωhm said:

 

I think it had something to do with assembly. Ease of mounting to fastener. Quicker for the robots.

There were no robots on the assembly line when the XJ or MJ were in production, at least nothing like what we see today.  
 

However, the use of Torx fasteners allows the power driver bits to last longer on the production line.

[eaglescout526]

17 minutes ago, AZJeff said:

There were no robots on the assembly line when the XJ or MJ were in production

There was some. But they did body welding, not much else.