Bolt torque discussion

toolmanmike said

Along those same lines, it's interesting that the flex plate has 6 or 8 bolts to attach it to the crank but only 4 bolts attach the plate to the converter, and those bolts only have 4 or 5 threads. :BangHead:

Click to expand...

Oh, that one is easy to see. Seriously.... the total torque (rotational force) is the same at both the crank bolt circle and the TC bolt circle, but the TC bolts are 5-6 times further out from the center of rotation. To exert the same torque, the TC bolts have to exert 5-6 times less force on the flexplate than the crank bolts. So they can be smaller, have fewer threads, and be fewer in number.