Ugh wheels tightened by an ape

[Mr Tidy]

Impasse said:

Surprising amount of salad consumption on PH. Which is odd when considering the number of fatties powerfully built (company director) types.

!


But as I'm not one of them it may be a good reason to have run-flats - the fg ape has to get them off!!!

Wonder if you could insist he used the OEM tool then stand laughing while he failed to make any impression? Suppose you'd need to run faster than him!

[JB!]

Crafty_ said:

I know someone who broke their fingers undoing wheel bolts, brace at the 9 o'clock position, firm grip on the handle, bolt released, his fingers headed for the floor with the brace and his effort close behind. We didn't take the mickey at all you understand There are ways of undoing wheel bolts and that isn't one of them!

Might be an old wives tale but I have always been under the impression that over tightening could lead to a stretched bolt and ultimately it shearing off ?

I have bought cars with stretched wheel bolts, quite a concerning moment when you wind them out and you can see the loss in width.

Also if your wheel corrodes to the hub/disc/drum, run the bolts out, then put them all back in finger tight, drive slowly a short distance and it should break the wheel free.

[vinnie01]

JB! said:

I have bought cars with stretched wheel bolts, quite a concerning moment when you wind them out and you can see the loss in width.

Also if your wheel corrodes to the hub/disc/drum, run the bolts out, then put them all back in finger tight, drive slowly a short distance and it should break the wheel free.

I just use a rubber topped mallet on stuck wheels. I take the bolts off and then give a the wheel a few taps until it lets go.

[JB!]

vinnie01 said:

I just use a rubber topped mallet on stuck wheels. I take the bolts off and then give a the wheel a few taps until it lets go.

I've had wheels not budge when smashing 7 shades of st out of them with a hammer, but the weight of the car always seems to work!

[vinnie01]

JB! said:

I've had wheels not budge when smashing 7 shades of st out of them with a hammer, but the weight of the car always seems to work!

Well i suppose 1/4 of the vehicle weight is still more force than we mere mortals can manage

[helidan]

The tyre place I use will always torque up to whatever the vehicle manufacturer specifies.

[The Wookie]

What's daft is that most airguns have an adjustment. Whenever I'm refitting wheels at work I start the bolts one turn by hand and then gun them, then drop the car and torque them up. Usually it ends up being about a quarter turn to the correct torque for most vehicles.

[El Guapo]

I'm lucky, my tyre guy lubes the threads, buzzes the bolts to finger-tight with the airgun then finishes the job with a torque wrench. In other words he does the job properly.

[Impasse]

El Guapo said:

I'm lucky, my tyre guy lubes the threads, buzzes the bolts to finger-tight with the airgun then finishes the job with a torque wrench. In other words he does the job properly.

Lubricating the threads isn't doing the job properly unless specifically stated for the torque values.

[Sf_Manta]

JB! said:

vinnie01 said:

I just use a rubber topped mallet on stuck wheels. I take the bolts off and then give a the wheel a few taps until it lets go.

I've had wheels not budge when smashing 7 shades of st out of them with a hammer, but the weight of the car always seems to work!

Wooden Mallet here, have had that issue with both my BMW and my brother's Skoda's alloy wheels freezing onto the hubs. Once off, the hub face and spigot get a reasonable coat of copper slip before re-fitting the wheel, usually torquing up the wheels to 100ft/lb. Tight enough it's not going to fall off but not so tight you can't get them undone.

Did have a friend's bedford recovery truck give us trouble. All the wheelnuts were gunned on, left on for years thus rusted solid.. then the previous owner got busy with the paint.

Queue me and my friend (who's 6'2" and weighed around 20 stone at the time, now lost weight) hanging off a 6 foot jack handle with a breaker bar that'd been welded BACK together after snapping once trying to undo 1 of these nuts. Would they budge? ... some did, 1 stripped the thread half off it's opposing stud in the process.

Eventually we had to give in and my friend got it to a truck mechanic locally who had a air gun, not the small ones that have 1/2" drive you see at most garages... No it was this:



This was the 1" drive bd of a gun they use to do the wheel nuts on trucks, to attack the wheel nuts on this Bedford... and even then that gun struggled to get them off!

[grumpy52]

ha ! Try shifting a 77mm centre nut on race wheels that have not been removed for 10 years ,lucky the nuts were ali and split quite easily .
Tightened with an 8ft dog leg torque wrench set at about 420 lbs/ft.

[Dermot O'Logical]

One of my pet peeves. I really hate having to hand my cars over to some neanderthals with no concept of respect for other people's property. However, I was pleasantly surprised by my local Costco. I took my Golf to hem for a pair of Michelins last September, and not only did they clean the wheels but they refitted them by doing the nuts up by hand and torquing them correctly but as they filled the new tyres on the rear with nitrogen they deflated the fronts and refilled them with nitrogen as well.

A few weeks later they were able to source a new pair of Bridgestone fronts for my S2000 and gave the same excellent service.

[P I Staker]

I always put wheels on with a gun, if you're any good with a gun you can easy tighten up a wheel half a turn or so from the correct torque.

[Zoobeef]

Used a 1" gun a few times to remove nuts.

[JB!]

Yeah, totally agree you should put a little copper slip on the back of the wheels, especially if your alloys are old and corroded

[robinessex]

Crafty_ said:

I know someone who broke their fingers undoing wheel bolts, brace at the 9 o'clock position, firm grip on the handle, bolt released, his fingers headed for the floor with the brace and his effort close behind. We didn't take the mickey at all you understand There are ways of undoing wheel bolts and that isn't one of them!

Might be an old wives tale but I have always been under the impression that over tightening could lead to a stretched bolt and ultimately it shearing off ?

Absolutley correct. Quite a few bolts used in engines, typically big end and cyl head bolts, are tightend to a 'stretch' length. You initially tighten the bolt to a small torque value to seat it. And then it is rotated a specific angular amount, sometimes in a few steps, to achieve the required load in the bolt. Clean threads essential. As such the bolts are almost at their yeild point value, and must never be used again. Over tightend bolts on wheel will often snap the next time they are tightened up. They did on my stepdaughters car a few weeks ago. Best to replace the lot for safety if you suspect over tightening.

[Limpet]

Had this on my old Cavalier, and started to bend the wheel brace trying (unsuccessfully) to remove the front wheel bolts to change a set of front pads. The local Kwik Fit had fitted two front tyres a month before.

I drove the car down there and asked them first of all to undo the bolts with the wheel brace. When he couldn't, I asked him how the *flipping heck* he expected me to?

They agree to remove the bolts and re-torque them properly. The car was driven into the bay, and what I saw next beggared belief. The fitter removed the bolts with the windy gun, then used same windy gun, having done nothing with it other than flick the direction switch, to do the bolts back up. Having done this, he then gets out the torque wrench and applies it to the by now massively overtorqued bolts. Click, click, click, click. What the hell?

Cowboys. Never been back.

My tyre fitter of choice now spins the bolts back on with a spider wrench, and then torques them by hand. They stamp a little disclaimer on the invoice that says the bolts have been correctly torqued, but should be re-checked within 50 miles.

[AW111]

I have changed I don't know how many wheels on rally cars over the years.
Nuts are spun on with rattle gun set to low torque, car is lowered, final tension with a cross brace (by hand).
Never had one come loose, never had trouble undoing one with cross brace.

Note : the wheels come on and off enough that the stud threads are clean, and all our alloy wheels have steel taper inserts so no corrosion welding of nut to wheel.

[stuart313]

Uncannily I now have that problem again. Got a puncture last night, luckily about half a mile from home, come to change it today and no chance, someone has now gone in search of a scaffold bar, not sure it will work though as using a crow bar wrapped round it was twisting the brace a bit.

Anyway this is what I meant by using the jack as a support for the brace.




Yes I know its a bit bald as well.

[stuart313]

Success.