I've always hand tightened the fill bolt until the washer was crushed. But definitely torque the drain bolt. As others have mentioned, don't forgo using new crush washers.

 

By feel. Because #yearsofexperience. And haven't stripped out an oil pan yet

 

Crowfoot and torque wrench, put it in like this and it wont change the torque value.

 

All of these fill and drain bolts are large with a lot of thread area and don't hold anything. I have found that they simply take a good snug pull on the wrench. I have never used a torque wrench on one of these with many cars over fifty years and have never had a leak or stripped bolt.

 

I'm trying to remember high school physics (scatch head). Wouldn't the angle alter the torque? My head says yes, but I don't have a the theory to back that up. In any event I need some of those crow feet attachments they look good.

 

You can google and go to all kinds of engineering sites where folks break this down ad nauseum. There is a small difference using the crowfoot but to keep it within the tolerance of the typical torque wrench, it should be used as pictured above. If you make it straight you will need to correct for the difference in length of the moment arm adding the distance between the center of the crows foot opening and the center of the hole where the torque wrench inserts.

 

The problem is that a lot of people don't have a "touch" for this. Otherwise, the problem of stripping/cracking oil pans and other oil housings wouldn't exist.

You may be able to do it by feel. But doesn't mean anyone can.

The torque wrench/crowsfoot thing is the only easily available setup to get if you aren't confident or knowledgeable enough. It gets you into a "good enough" range without guessing.

 

I purchased a socket small enough to fit with a 3/8 torque wrench from Amazon.

 

I've never used a torque wrench on any oil fill/drain bolt. They just need to be snug. The threads are significantly coated in oil, so it's getting plenty tight with a quick snug.

Also, I've seen people strip oil fill/drain bolts with torque wrenches. In fact, torque wrenches have caused 95% of my thread stripping in the past, so I rarely use them. I do, however, use torque wrenches on anything circular (wheels, flywheel, clutch, etc).


And if you want to figure out how much torque you're really applying with that crows foot... http://www.cncexpo.com/TorqueAdapter.aspx

 

As long as the crow foot sits at a 90 degree angle (like in my picture) it wont affect the effective torque applied.