Dear Dave,

At 08:52 PM 6/13/2010, mcneely4@cox.net wrote:
> > The thread is a 7/16-20. You can get a replacement bolt at any hardware

Hello Lucas; he's talking about the bolt attaching the female-end
strap under the seat, not the ones you supply.

>Lucas, thanks again for your response.  Following the advice of
>David Beierl, who is a participant in the vanagon.com mailing list,
>I cleaned the bolt and bore threads with brake cleaner, and put
>antisieze lubricant on the threads.

Yes.

>   I then screwed the bolts in, tightened them up, and snugged them
> down on the fittings.  The tightening did require more force than
> the 35-45 ft lbs your instructions recommend (I discontinued using
> my cheap torque wrench for fear of breaking it, but it would not
> turn the screws in at 60 ft. lbs, so I went to a regular socket wrench.

This part I definitely didn't advise; if it seemed that I did I
apologize.  Those bolts as I said before are only supposed to be
torqued to about 30 lb-ft, which means they must thread in much more
easily than that until they get to the "snugged and ready to tighten"
point.  If they won't do this then there is something wrong with the
machine screw or the hole it threads into or both.  As I also said, a
likely reason with a large fine-thread fastener is something carried
back up into the hole as the fastener is withdrawn.  But whether or
not that's the problem, it needs to be fixed, not overpowered.

Yours,
David