Wheel nut tightness

[Tinkley]

Well I'm off to buy a new 19mm socket - had to remove 4 wheel nuts of the Auto and that split the socket, fortunately after the nuts came loose....had to use a 2 meter scaffold tube to loosen them! Still got the other side to do.
Just how tight do these tyre guys do them, forget using the factory supplied brace it will be soft spaghetti before you could get one of these to shift. Never damaged a socket before and had BX wheels of and on many a time, so be warned, some people really do not check their torque settings....

Now imagine a mum and kids by the side of the road on a winters night, lets hope it happens to the tyre fitters families.......
Me, Ill continue to carry a socket but I know how tight the bolts are too.

[CitroXim]

Thy really don't need to be that tight... 65 ft lbs I believe is what you need...

I've seen Xantia hub wheel bolt threads stripped due to over-enthusiastic tightening...

Basically reasonably tight with a 12" T-bar is perfect...

[Tinkley]

Well I've upgraded to a set of six point sockets to help get a bit more grunt on these 'b'stards' well they are after Kwik fit or other spanner monkeys go nuts with the torque gun. These must have been truck wheel torque tightness.

[Way2go]

Well I've upgraded to a set of six point sockets to help get a bit more grunt on these 'b'stards' well they are after Kwik fit or other spanner monkeys go nuts with the torque gun. These must have been truck wheel torque tightness.

By far & away, the best tool for wheel nuts is the extending wheel brace where you tighten with the brace closed and undo with the brace extended. These can be bought for under a 'tenner' and come with the deep 6 sided sockets. With the brace extended its usually enough of a match for the monkeys with the air-gun.

[Tinkley]

I know the things W2G. My old man was not far off when he said push to do up and pull to undo - similar to short and long lever just using the body. Can't moan too much my old socket set is circa 1975 and has done pretty well. However these newer 6 point types are much better at not rounding the heads as the grip point is away from the 'corners' of the hex. The fun now might be a good brake pipe flared wrench type as one of my rear arm pipe feeds has a truly rounded and part siezed feed nipple. Might end up cutting and replacing the rear pipes yet, in fact if it did not shear I'd be happy.

As for the wheel nuts - the 19mm six point worked a treat, also had to swap o/s front caliper and it did those fine too. The rear anti roll bar bolts were pretty tight on the Auto, just dry type corrosion. I've put grease on all the bolts inc wheel ones as they were so bone dry.

[Tim Leech]

I have a good quality spider which has never failed me yet to get wheel nuts off even when some goon has wound them up with a windy gun, think it cost about £10 10 years ago?

[Glorybx]

Bought mine for a quid at a boot fair so they can be found pretty cheap.

[Tinkley]

Well two wheels were 'normal' tightness and two were excessive. Needed over 1 meter leverage and I'm about 83Kg to get those undone, even the common 'long' wheel brace/extender would not have been enough for those. Still they will be OK now....

Some progress though both rear arms done, drop links etc etc.