Wheel nut torque

P

phil

New Member
Hi all, a quick question, I couldn't see anything in search. What should the wheel nut torque be for a 1971 J reg mk2 V8 auto?

Thanks. Phil.
 
You'll be suprised at how un-tight (sorry couldn't think of a better word, lose, slack ?) they should be. I've seen people jumping on wheel braces, and people saying you should tighten until you hear them "crack" :evil:

Of course there is the garage favourite of "however tight the air gun can get them" which ranges from lose, to practically welded on.
 
65 lb ft! That is loose.. 3/8 ratchet tight near enough!
Don't talk to me about over tight bolts. I'm a main dealer tec and see some crazy stuff. People don't seem to realise the tighter it is, the more likely it is to snap under hard cornering!
 
I dont go by the torque setting as experience has taught me how much to do them up.
I always tighten mine as much as poss by std socket and lever then just a tad more with a 3' leverbar.
 
Does that mean you carry a 3' lever bar with you in case you get a puncture Pilkie :shock:

I just use a wheel brace, one that's shaped in a cross from halfords. I tighten them up with the same tool I'm going to be using at the side of the road.

Bri.
 
Hi, but you need more force to undo them than do them up, because you need to break
the bite of the tapered seat. If you look at wheel braces for Range Rover's they are a
hinged affair, you do them up with the short length and fold them out to undo with the
long length.

Colin
 
2 white knuckles seems about right to me :D

Brian-Northampton said:
Does that mean you carry a 3' lever bar with you in case you get a puncture Pilkie
Click to expand...

I fitted some replacement wheel nuts from the supplier Pilkie mentioned a while ago in a previous thread and although they were quoted as being the correct size they are ever so slightly too big for a standard wheel brace. So I tighten them with a standard length ratchet with a deep socket attached and carry a breaker bar with that socket fitted in the car to get them off.

Dave
 
Brian-Northampton said:
Does that mean you carry a 3' lever bar with you in case you get a puncture Pilkie :shock:
Bri.
Click to expand...
YEP!!,And in the TR! :LOL:
The long bar of the small trolley jack I carry does the job nicely!! :wink:
 
The Merc dealer I apprenticed with had us do wheel nuts to 110 Newton meters and even had an inspector checking them after servicing as they felt it was that important.
 
Well, I was round at my mates garage the other week, he was telling me how one his customers had taken their Audi to a tyre warehouse type place for a tyre fitting, and they hadn't tightened the wheel bolts, upon driving away 3 bolts came out and the wheel very nearly fell off ! So yes it is important to check them :D
 
Being over zealous can be just as dangerous, some years back I dropped in on a small HGV outfit carrying quarry products, I caught one of the drivers "nipping" up his trucks wheelnuts, with 3/4 drive socket, breaker bar and 6ft of scaffolding tube to jump on! I asked him what his procedure was, it transpired he did this every day to make sure the nuts were tight. I told him to undo one, the stud snapped, they were all stretched and waisted and just waiting for one to snap on the road and they would have gone like a machine gun, and the front wheel with them. New studs all round and a word in the gaffers ear.
A nice lad, and very handy if you wanted anything heavy lifting......
You could probably have used his head as a jacking pad without damaging it, but maybe harm jack! :LOL:
 
John said:
Being over zealous can be just as dangerous, some years back I dropped in on a small HGV outfit carrying quarry products, I caught one of the drivers "nipping" up his trucks wheelnuts, with 3/4 drive socket, breaker bar and 6ft of scaffolding tube to jump on! I asked him what his procedure was, it transpired he did this every day to make sure the nuts were tight. I told him to undo one, the stud snapped, they were all stretched and waisted and just waiting for one to snap on the road and they would have gone like a machine gun, and the front wheel with them. New studs all round and a word in the gaffers ear.
A nice lad, and very handy if you wanted anything heavy lifting......
You could probably have used his head as a jacking pad without damaging it, but maybe harm jack! :LOL:
Click to expand...

That's amazing, Doing a rough calculation, assuming the guy was average weight of about 170lbs and was swinging off the end of the scaffold pole, that's in the region of 1000 ft lbs :!: Amazing they hadn't sheared.

If I remember my science lessons correctly, steel is quite elastic but when "worked", for example when you apply torsion one then the other repeatedly it starts to become more brittle and prone to snapping. So, if you keep overtightening bolts like wheel "nuts", periodically removing them and then overtightening again, you will run a real risk of them snapping :?:
 
Took the wife's Atos in for tyres a while back and the bloke did the nuts up with a pneumatic rattle gun.
The boss of the shop was not too impressed with my language to one of his employees until I invited him to loosen the nuts with the car's wheelbrace, which he couldn't do.
I left feeling much better after that exercise and the embarrasment of a shop full of customers seeing the show.
 
I swap wheels over when I need new tyres, taking them in loose, something that I have been doing this since the late 1980s. The pneumatic rattle guns that John spoke of in his post above just ruin the nuts, not to mention making them extremely tight into the bargain.

Ron.
 
Appreciate a pointer to where in WSM it gives wheel nut torque please. Found 66 ft/lb in SD1 manual, which matches the 65 above, but cannot find such a figure in my Repair Ops manual . In the maintenance pages it gives tyre pressures, no torque figure. My copy of AKM3621 is dated 1972.
I have been using 75 ft/lb on my MX5 (m12), but 95 on the 928(m14), which uses alloy wheel nuts.
thanks
 
My 2200 Drivers handbook show 90 kgf.m (65 lbf.ft) page 60 Part No. RTC 9035 1974, Cannot find anything in the Workshop manual AKM 3625 dated 1977 .My view is the UNF threads generally have a finer pitch to most standard similar dia. metric and thus need less torque for the same clamp load which is the object of torqueing up fixings.
I was also told at Rover when I worked there that the wheel brace length was designed for the average person to not over tighten the nuts. Which of course doesn't help standing at the side of the road in the pouring rain with a puncture. That's why Land Rover came up with the hinged brace which gave half the length to tighten compared with undoing the nuts
 
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