This M-250R2 looks like it's ready to abanon ship. It's still shiney and has a dark PC so it's a pretty new M-250R2 too. I guess maybe it was installed right on th edge of a leveling step and them vibration made it fall off the step and now it's loose. This isn't the first time I've seen a NGrid-installed M-250R2 on a metal pole become loose like this. I sure don't want to be the guy whose car this falls on...
Hmm I thought impact guns were standard to use by electric companies. They must not get a whole lot of torque from a nut driver. I personally use a socket wrench except for my silver M-250R, where I use a reular wrench, since my socket wrench is too tall to fit where the bolt are to adjust the leveling portion of the slipfitter.
Yeah the fixture was probably right on the edge of the bracket and the wiring was keeping it from slipping off. I went by this and this light is gone. The pole is headless. No sign of the light, but it disappaeared sometime after the streetview from July 2011. A streetview link is here. Notice how the light behind the first one is tilted down in the streetview? Well now it looks like the one above, ready to tall off. I guess the NGrid lineman who fixed the lights on the Henderson Bridge back in 2011 (as part of their process of fixing up all their freeway lights which hadn't been serviced since they were installed 20 years ago) and installed these lights didn't tighten the bolts enough.
These single clamp slipfitters are notorious for slippage if you don't torque the bolts properly. I've seen Cooper OVZs do the same thing. Years back I saw an M400A1 and an M250A1 hanging by their leads.
I always tighten the bolts until I just about can't tighten them anymore. I've seen an OVZ tilted sideways from loose bolts. My OVC from 1990 has a nice 4-bolt fitter so it's nice and secure. My M-400A2, OVC, and my Westinghouse OV-15TD FCO are my only lights with 4-bolt fitters, unless you count the 1960s slipfitter used in the M-250Rs and M-400s and in my OV-25 remote ballast. My OV-10IB has only two bolts. It has one on the bottom for securing the light to the arm and then a bolt on top for leveling, similar to a NEMA head exept that if you tighten the bolt on top, the light tilts down whereas a NEMA head would tilt upward.
The older Silverliners, especially the OV25 and OV50 have four bolt slipfitters but the clamps are spread further apart and use 1/2" thread bolts or in the case of later models, rods and nuts. This made for e very secure mounting.
My OV-25 remote ballast has a slipfitter that's pretty much the same thing GE used in the M-400 and M-250R in the 60s. It's got a regular clamp bracket near the hinges and has a circular shaped clamp near the reflector used for tilting the fixture.
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I personally use a socket wrench except for my silver M-250R, where I use a reular wrench, since my socket wrench is too tall to fit where the bolt are to adjust the leveling portion of the slipfitter.
