[jaytyn]

I tried to undo the wheel nuts on my car the other day, only to find out they where so ****ing tight they wouldnt come off..

So I took it into the dealer and had them loosened and re-tightened by hand.

So today, i had my car up on the hoist (painting disc centres) and realised the nuts where ok, but the lock nuts where sooo tight still.

Apparently they where so tight in the first place, the mechanic who was re-tightening them just let them alone.

They where sooo tight, one of the lock nuts stripped..... Took 2 hours to chisel it out by one of the mechanics, and resulted in a damaged alloy wheel...

Which they will replace at their expense, for doing the lock nut up so tight!!

MORAL OF THIS STORY, MAKE SURE MECHANICS DONT USE RATTLE GUNS ON YOUR LOCK NUTS.

 

[XR_Strider_GuY]

Yeah i know where your commin from, but with 99.9% of mechanics using them theres really no choice, but if they use it properly they can use teh gun without tighening them super tight.

One bad thing about rattle guns i found is the chrome locknuts on my mags are abit effed, the chrome is stripping away from the nuts and rust starts to build on them, it looks crap.

 

[XR8chic]

Hi,

you think that was annoying... I got a flat once, took the wheel off no problems, but when I went to get the spare out I couldnt turn the little metal thing that hold it in place. (the giant bolt thing)

I tried for ages (this is in the middle of the night too) and finally had to get 2 mates to help me... they couldnt do it either! One of them ended up having to break the rod that the bolt sits on as there was no way that bolt was coming off.

 

[Nipper]

Kel, I had the same problem when I got my Futura. My spare wheel was a matching Alloy and I wanted to check it out.

I tried for 2 hours to undo the spare wheel bolt with no success.
I borrowed a pair of stiltsens (I think thats spelt right) off a mate and proceeded to mangel the bolt until it came out looking like a twistie..... Hence to say I no longer have a spare wheel bolt..

Nipper...

 

[FTEfan]

I understand the frustrations with using rattle guns on wheel nuts. My rattle gun actually ends up stalling at about 110 Nm on wheel nuts. We tested it and proved it when I blew up my other rattle gun trying to undo the nuts on a Pajero that a work mate had done up. Worse then nuts to tight is that my rattle gun can't do the damm wheel bolts tight enough on the bigger Mercedes! The vans need 175-180 Nm torque which is waaaaaaaaay beyond what my gun can do, I need a 1 meter torque wrench to tighten them!

 

[Aussiblue]

Overtight Nuts

Couple of countermeasures I use:

a) Put some high temp grease or antiseize on the wheel bolts threads; makes them much easier to undo however tight they've been done up.

b) Weld the socket key to your locking nuts to one of the unused (next size up) end of a wheel nut spider so whoever does them up has to do so by hand.....but pro tyre jocks also seem to have muscles like rattle guns.

:nuts: