Flat Tire Surprise

[colinl]

That's about where mine were from the factory as well, and one reason why I'm calling 100 lb/ft "good enough".

I didn't actually check someone's source when they mentioned 150ft-lb - that might actually be just the XL steel wheels.

I can't recall seeing a spec on an alloy wheel that high. 120ish, sure.

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[Tbone289]

I haven't checked that spec either @colini, and you raise a good point, as steel wheels always have a higher torque spec in my experience.

 

[Edge Haley]

Great thread.
I went ahead and I checked my lugs they were pretty tight. It also reminded me to put my four-way lug wrench and well used homemade breaker bar in my truck.
Thank You

Looks just like my 4-way and breaker-bar. I am 100% confident I would have never loosened the lug nuts without the breaker bar. I too have added MY breaker bar to the back of the rear seat. I've had AAA before and those times it was needed I was 2, 3 hours on their list and at the time if you did not use a wrecker service on their list AAA would not reimburse the cost so I dropped it.

 

[Carlitos_92]

That's about where mine were from the factory as well, and one reason why I'm calling 100 lb/ft "good enough".

I have never felt the need to tighten lug nuts any more than what I could do by hand with the "toy tools" provided by the OEM, regardless of manufacturer. Hell, I never even used a torque wrench, except on my old F-150 that had a stud shear clean off, - but that wasn't my fault anyway. Pretty sure Ford recalled those trucks for that.

Anyway, I may have to re-evaluate someday when I am not as "strong" as I am now, but for the time being, I think I am internally calibrated to around your "good enough" number. Over 35 years and 7-8 cars (and one motorcycle lol), I've never had a lug nut come off.

 

[Tbone289]

Anyway, I may have to re-evaluate someday when I am not as "strong" as I am now, but for the time being, I think I am internally calibrated to around your "good enough" number. Over 35 years and 7-8 cars (and one motorcycle lol), I've never had a lug nut come off.

100%

After years of wrenching my elbows and shoulders are calibrated to the German standard "gutenough". I think there's probably an umlaut in there somewhere . But seriously, anyone who has done this as long as we have knows that even torquing is always more important than hitting an exact number anyway.

 

[AzureBlueBill]

I didn't actually check someone's source when they mentioned 150ft-lb - that might actually be just the XL steel wheels.

I can't recall seeing a spec on an alloy wheel that high. 120ish, sure.

It says 148 ft-lbs in the owners manual. That's it. No memention of different torques for different wheels.

 

[MakinDoForNow]

Geeze: to check "this is tight enough". Take truck up to 100 mph and max stop 5 times or so! Check drivers side nuts to see how many are still on studs at the torque you used. You can also check the passenger side to see how much tighter they are. The direction of rotation of the wheel is the "safer" direction that the nut should turn to tighten. Some cars in the good ole days had left hand studs on drivers side and right hand studs on the passenger side. That way braking would tighten the lug nuts on both sides. The nut has a lever arm of 3/8"-3/4"+/- (= what's the weight of nut at foot lbs at 100mph rpm of wheel?). Right hand thread on driver's side can spin nut off if not torqued enough.

 

[Tbone289]

Well, that's at least true for "knock-offs", or the old racing wheels that had a single, large center nut.

I like your approach though!

 

[Glen Baker LLC]

Geeze: to check "this is tight enough". Take truck up to 100 mph and max stop 5 times or so! Check drivers side nuts to see how many are still on studs at the torque you used. You can also check the passenger side to see how much tighter they are. The direction of rotation of the wheel is the "safer" direction that the nut should turn to tighten. Some cars in the good ole days had left hand studs on drivers side and right hand studs on the passenger side. That way braking would tighten the lug nuts on both sides. The nut has a lever arm of 3/8"-3/4"+/- (= what's the weight of nut at foot lbs at 100mph rpm of wheel?). Right hand thread on driver's side can spin nut off if not torqued enough.

Chrysler products were the only ones that I remember having lug nuts like that.

 

[Bosquebass]

Many medium duty trucks and school buses have right and left threaded lugs. Heavy duty tractors and trailers may too, but I never worked on any of them so I don't know.

 

[Tbone289]

I'm failing to understand how a lug or nut is going to experience enough rotational force to loosen it (around the axis of the lug) when it is located several inches away from the axis of the wheel's rotation. Reversing the threads makes sense when the axis of rotation of the fastener and wheel are the same. I guess I need to refresh my physics knowledge...

 

[Bosquebass]

I'm failing to understand how a lug or nut is going to experience enough rotational force to loosen it (around the axis of the lug) when it is located several inches away from the axis of the wheel's rotation. Reversing the threads makes sense when the axis of rotation of the fastener and wheel are the same. I guess I need to refresh my physics knowledge...

I can't tell you why it works that way but it does. If you swap hubs with the right handed thread on the left and vice versa the lugs will loosen themselves in short order. I've seen it happen many times.

 

[AzureBlueBill]

Geeze: to check "this is tight enough". Take truck up to 100 mph and max stop 5 times or so! Check drivers side nuts to see how many are still on studs at the torque you used. You can also check the passenger side to see how much tighter they are. The direction of rotation of the wheel is the "safer" direction that the nut should turn to tighten. Some cars in the good ole days had left hand studs on drivers side and right hand studs on the passenger side. That way braking would tighten the lug nuts on both sides. The nut has a lever arm of 3/8"-3/4"+/- (= what's the weight of nut at foot lbs at 100mph rpm of wheel?). Right hand thread on driver's side can spin nut off if not torqued enough.

And, by doing testing in the modern age, this was all proven to be total garbage. If you torqe them evenly and to a reasonable number of ft-lbs, they just do not come loose. 75 ft-lb is great for 7/16" studs/nuts, 90 ft-lbs is great for 1/2" studs/nuts. 100 ft-lbs for our 14mm (or around 9/16") studs/nuts. That has worked for me for 60 years of wrenching on just about anything automotive. Hell, we only torqued the 9/16" nuts on our asphalt modified with a cross-type wrench. Didn't know the ft-lbs and it didn't seem to matter.

 

[AzureBlueBill]

I'm failing to understand how a lug or nut is going to experience enough rotational force to loosen it (around the axis of the lug) when it is located several inches away from the axis of the wheel's rotation. Reversing the threads makes sense when the axis of rotation of the fastener and wheel are the same. I guess I need to refresh my physics knowledge...

Exactly. Is has been proven to be junk science.

 

[AzureBlueBill]

Chrysler products were the only ones that I remember having lug nuts like that.

No, at one time they were used all over. Never made any sense. Except to the stud manufacturers! They got broken off more times than you can imagine.

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