Why the hell do they do wheel nuts up so tight!!

The Edge

The Edge

The Edge

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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Birmingham
I came to do some work on my brakes. 14 days later i'm on my third locknut key and still haven't got the wheels off!!:mad::mad:

Why on earth do they not torque the locknuts? these keys are £25 a throw, unfortunately the tyres were done some time ago and i don't have a reciept.

Going to try a rattlegun tomorrow, hopefully that'll shift them. What you're supposed to do if you have a puncture i don't know.
 
This is the very reason I now own a long breaker bar, The previous owner of one of my cars must have been the hulk.

Hope ya get it sorted.
 
Its damn lazy that’s what it is….

You may have to take it to a garage, where you can weld a bolt head to it or heat it up to remove with a bloody big bar….
 
ZG002 said:
This is the very reason I now own a long breaker bar, The previous owner of one of my cars must have been the hulk.

Hope ya get it sorted.
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its usually idiots in garages who get over zealous with the air guns. I usually specifically ask them to refrain from using the gun and use a hand tool for the final few turns.
 
MrLOL said:
its usually idiots in garages who get over zealous with the air guns. I usually specifically ask them to refrain from using the gun and use a hand tool for the final few turns.
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a lot of places have a Policy were they must use a torque wrench due to complaints
 
Are you trying to undo the locking wheel nut first before undoing any of the others?

Try nipping the other nuts up tighter first.
 
a couple of winters ago i was driving one of the works pool cars in heavy snow. Wasn't watching what i was doing properly and hit a kerb that was covered by the snow and got a puncture.

Over an hour i spent trying to get the nuts on the wheel off ! There was a toolkit in the boot, and spare, but the idiot had done the nuts up that tightly that the wheel nut wrench that came with the toolkit actually broke before the nuts came off. Stripped the inside of the thing bare.

I had to flag random motorists down till i found somebody with a breaker bar strong enough to remove them !

Being a pool car of course it was dropped off by somebody and collected again the next day and bill sent to head office. Nobody gave a damn about it, so nobody thought to mention to the garage not to do the nuts up too tight !
 
my old man had a puncture in his merc a few years ago and i offered to change it for him on saturday morning whilst him and my mum went out (thought i'd gain a few brownie points) after over an hour trying to get the wheel nuts off and me thinking this may be a practical joke, i threw the towel in. we called the AA and it took him ages aswell and he had the right gear to do it.
 
So fools like me don't drive around for a few days thinking the rear diff is on the way out when in fact the nuts on one of the wheels were not tight enough and that clunking sound is the wheel moving around.

That was just normal nuts on my jeep last week.

As for locknuts, the key I had for my old Jeep was broken and a local garage got them off with one of those socket with lots of pins in that grips odd shaped nuts.

Like this?

2856_RATCHET.jpg
 
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Nothing wrong with airguns as long as you are using torque attachments.

The issue is not tightening to the correct torque. That's an operator fail, not a tool fail! :p
 
Had the same thing when we had all that snow a while back, got a puncture, thought to myself right ill change that in a jiffy, no probs.........oh no, could not shift one of the wheel nuts as it was actually a slightly different shape/size to the others, ended up calling the aa out which took much longer than it should have, therefore spoiling my plans for the evening and incurring the wrath of the mrs who was stuck in the car waiting !!!
 
MrLOL said:
I usually specifically ask them to refrain from using the gun and use a hand tool for the final few turns.
Click to expand...

HGV's wheels are air gunned on & then torqued by hand after, yet wheel loss on trucks is still fairly common.

In certain scanario's, you can't have your nuts tight enough!:eek::D
 
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