Sintek

'02 Tahoe, 5.3, 4WD.

I'll be diving into a complete front-end rebuild (amongst other things) soon and am shopping for a torque wrench that I can hopefully use for everything. Right now I'm looking at one with a stated range of 25-250 ft.-lbs. Is that sufficient for this vehicle?

tech2

what specifically are you replacing. what steering and suspension is it built with....rack and pinion or parallelogram linkage...torsion bar or coil springs? pitman arm nut may be over 250ftlbs. most people impact it on anyway.

Cusser

I haven't worked as a "professional mechanic" since mid 1970s, but I've never come across any fasteners taking that high of torque on GM or on my Mazda or Nissan trucks. I suggest both 3/8 drive and 1/2 drive torque wrenches, and I even have 1/4 inch drive myself for the little 6mm thread fasteners.

There are two instances on old air-cooled VWs though that do require 250 ft lbs of torque: the flywheel gland nut and the rear axle nuts.

Sintek

Gear steering. Torsion bar. ZW7 suspension package, supposedly. All shocks have been replaced anyway.

The easy parts are done: new rotors, calipers, pads and shocks on all four wheels. Next are front L/R upper and lower control arms, CV axles, pitman arm, idler arm, inner and outer tie rod ends, stabilizer bar link kits, probably some smaller things I'm forgetting. I look forward to putting this stuff on the vehicle because it takes up a lot of space in its individual boxes.

Thanks for the responses.