chrome

I've recently damn near killed myself due to 'tightening' wheel nuts to 101lbft supposedly that two days later are finger tight!!!

fo0kin tourque wrench is going in the bin


Any sage advice on sourcng a quality replacement torque wrench without having to remortgage (ie: no SNAP ON) ????

Cheers..

David_Wallis

draper, teng, britool

chrome

any ideal size?

ie:
3/4"
3/8"
1/4"
1/2"
?

Suppose it depends on spec of existing socket's?

found these:
http://www.powertoolwarehouse.co.uk/...roducts_id/714
http://www.powertoolwarehouse.co.uk/...oducts_id/1919 - this one is IDENTICAL in looks to the one I have from halfrauds..
http://www.powertoolwarehouse.co.uk/...oducts_id/1919


It's almost solely for taking wheels on/off and regular checking/tightening..




..guess I'm stronger than my current wrench..

03-CTR

take a look at the autoexpress website under the product review section.

my guess is that you'll need a 1/2" at least.

its a bit worrying you finding your nuts loose though have you had the car checked just in case. you would have needed a fair bit of arm action to get your nuts tight so finding them loose afterwards could be dodgy.

chrome

I know..
The fella at the garage and I (wasnt sure if it was underbody so it went up onto the 4poster) were wondering if scum have been lurking late at night on my drive...

It was weird as only the passenger side was loose (front and rear )

..yet DEFINATELY I went round on friday night and did them ALL to 100lb/ft until the wrench 'clicked' when I swapped them over..
(recent refurb- so was swapping out loaned wheels)
I'm fussy over keeping check on the wheel nuts and tyre pressures- it's normally a friday or a saturday morning I check.
Locking nuts were ALSO loose

Not parked anywhere else to allow oppurtunists.. (sp?)
Car is garaged overnight

I'm hoping that it's just my wrench dying and nothing more sinister..


this 12v impact wrench looks handy btw
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/product..._wrenches.html

Cheers for the AutoExpress heads up..never thought to look there..

MartinM

Halfords Professional - come with their own calibration certificate.

I have the 1/2" and 3/8" drives...giving a coverage of "not very tight at all" to 'blimey, that's tight"

Kevin Groat

Chrome, what car has a wheel nut torque of 101ft/lbs? Wouldn't fancy undoing that with the factory supplied wheel wrench. Other half's Golf mk4 is 85'ish ft/lbs and that's a barsteward to undo with the wrench.

chrome

well I tried OE spec, and they come loose over a week or two when caning it.

so I went a little higher following some advice from 'drivetrain gods'
I would NEVER use the supplied wrench.
I carry a torque wrench pretty much everywhere in the boot.

Kevin Groat

I meant undoing the wheelnuts with the OE wrench when you get a puncture - in the rain, miles from anywhwere (usually). The VW one's require a good jumping on to slacken at 85 lb/ft - there's no way my wife could undo these.....
On my V3 STi I've always used the standard 75 ft/lbs and never had a nut slacken in the 6 yrs I've owned it and I've had the wheels off dozens of times...
Are you running standard wheels? (assuming it's a Scoob)

03-CTR

actually come to think of it 100lbs ft is bloody high. mine only need 100Nm but all cars/fixings differ.

if you don't mind me asking who is it that told you to increase the torque to 100lbs ft and what is the normal recommended torque??

only reason i ask is that you could be stretching your bolts which is a recipe for your car going one way and the wheels going another i think this is the philosophy behind cars being supplied with a sad excuse for a wrench as there's only so much torque you can apply with a stubby tool.

ozzy

Think I set mine to 70-75lb/ft.

Was your locking wheel nut loose? if not, I'd suspect some ******* undoing them.

chrome

I carry the torque wrench EVERYWHERE in the boot.
Locking nut was loose too..

Due to recent wheel refurb it has been suggested that the serious heat of saturday (8hrs+ in direct sunlight) may have caused the llacquer to expand???
Not sure of the validity really.. but you never know..


hm.
looks like I was misguided using 100lb/ft

It seems 65-75lbft seems to be the result of using the search function.. I must have got my wires crossed with NM.. whoops

03-CTR

i'm not trying to worry you but personally i'd take the car down to the garage to get the threads looked at. 100lbs ft is quite a lot over spec (over 30%) so could possibly be the cause of the gapping.

i'm sure there will be a sufficient reserve factor designed into the bolts but if you've been tightening to 100lbs ft for some time and blasting round bends then you may have over stresses things a tad (hence only the passenger side being loose maybe). this is a long shot but if you've plastically deformed the bolts then it won't take that long to fatigue them to death or fracture them completely.

having said that if you are undoing the nuts with the torque wrench too then this could have damaged it in the first place. best thing to do with the new one is to use a regular wrench to undo and a torque wrench to tighten.

chrome

will order some new ones asap.

got shootout at the weekend.

chrome

you mention bolts too.. do you mean get new bolts on the 'hubs' too?

Butty

iTrader: (2)

Are you also wearing non standard wheels with Subaru wheel nuts?
The contact angle on nut to wheel hole may be very small.
Needs a lot of torque to hold it in place but using the car is allowing the contact spot to wear away or move and you've lost the nut torque?
Try matching the wheel nut to the type of wheel you have.

Nick

chrome

I have no idea whatsoever what nut is needed...
I didnt buy these wheels.
previous owner bought them.
no idea if the nuts are specfic to the rims????
who wold know- OZ racing?