Why aren't all our wheels falling off/all hubs or discs warping?

[reelizmpro]

hahaha this is great. I can picture that in a manual somewhere next to angle torque.

[ForcedFirebird]

Interesting weight-savings idea, but don't you think mounting will be an issue?

Lugs were still to TQ :P

Crazy thing is, I had just gotten out of the car about 30min prior. It happened climbing the hill, turn 1 at Road Atlanta (middle of 4th gear)!

The top pic is when it was still on the roll back, we jacked it up while on the truck, slapped a new wheel on, just in time to do one lap and get the checkered flag haha.

[ELVA164]

Interesting weight-savings idea, but don't you think mounting will be an issue?

[ForcedFirebird]

Seriously though, I have seen too many times during a race where a wheel came off, so we keep a torque wrench handy and check them periodically. Something you might get away with on the street isn't quite the same. I also have been able to "feel" a bolt, so generally a 1' breaker bar is enough for me to judge and be very close.

Adding to the post above about other failures, this is what cast wheels look like after a year of being beat on...

[djjerme]

I'm saving that one Andrew to send to a few mechanic friends..

[dnguyen1963]

For something like the wheel lug nuts, a cheap HF torque wrench costs about $10 so why not buy one and throw it in the trunk?

[jeffnhiscars]

Never lost a wheel but came close once in, of all cars, my 911. Seems the tire shop hadn't tightened them and you can imagine the disaster potential with that car.

It occurs to me that the best reason to torque them is to insure the stress is evenly distributed among the lugs. If one is notably tighter than the others it would seem much more likely to break, which would just load the others leading to more problems etc etc

I torque 2x on install and now and then grab the wrench and do a walk around on the fleet. I do find the occasional nut to snug so it's not a bad practice ....if you value your ride....and your neck

[sonomabimmers]

Just had two replace two perfectly fine wheel bearing/hubs because P/O brought it somewhere that they cross threaded three lug nuts with a gun and the head snapped off of each when i tried to remove them leaving a nut stuck in the hub.

[AndrewBird]

[Hooffenstein HD]

A couple of ugga duggas with the impact gun has never done me wrong.

[Kershaw]

I guess people missed all the "vintage racing" stuff in your avatar and signature...

[ELVA164]

That seems orfully low- as in, work loose low. I set the track wrench to 65-
but I use anti- seize. (flame suit on, zipped up, and I have a full air tank)

It is awfully low for a "normal" car, but most of our cars float around the 1000lb mark and have 7/16" studs. I was just illustrating the difference in construction between much older cars and the newer stuff.

In case you're concerned, we haven't had a single lug nut come loose on any car in the past ~20 years. :)

[TobyB]

40 ft•lb of torque on the lug nuts.

That seems orfully low- as in, work loose low. I set the track wrench to 65-
but I use anti- seize. (flame suit on, zipped up, and I have a full air tank)

a rotor hold down screw that was a bit proud.

I watched a quite- professionally- prepared car lose a wheel that way...

t

[FireFight]

For most of my car life I just used common sense when tightening them, I have always used the stock lug wrench. But I finally bought a torque wrench and have been pretty anal about putting everything back to spec when it goes back on.

Back when I first got in to cars, I had to take my girl friend to work while working on the rear suspension and with out thinking I slapped the wheel on and put the lugn uts on maybe 3 turns. fast forward to a mile down the road and the ass of the car squats and I see my wheel flying in front of me down the road.
When I bought the car the trunk had a box filled with lug nuts, that saved my ass because the lug nuts where totally gone. Since then I always double check lugs and keep a whole wheels worth of lugs in my trunk

[RainRider]

The importance of properly tourquing lug nuts goes up when using any kind of spacers or different size rims or both. Which both is my case and am anal about tourquing them myself. After getting new tires I retorque at home.