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aeronca65t

aeronca65t

Great Pumpkin
Offline
Urggh, that's horrible.
Some of the more seasoned autoxers snickered at me for having a checklist my first time, I think I checked the wheel nuts 50 times the entire day.
At least he put the handbrake on.
 
Couldn't get it to work in the internet cafe here in Germany.
 
"we just have to eat the elephant!" is that some sort of regional expression down south

I can understand forgetting to tighten 1 nut, but 20? or did the studs pop out? That guy should not be racing!
 
The story going around the internet was the guy was sold the wrong kind of lugs. They torqued on okay, but apparently they were only grabbing part of the thread and ripped right off. They were able to lift one corner up and get a jack underneath and put the stock wheels and stock lugs to get it on a flatbed.
 
Did it pass tech inspection with the wrong lugs? Why would he change them anyway, unless he went to bigger ones to handle big power or cornering loads.
 
Here is what I found...

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:]Hello all,
I was at the event and know the guy who owns the car. (No it wasn't me)
I was in the paddock area next to him changing wheels at the same time as him. I watched him torque all of them. I even borrowed his torque wrench to tighten mine (I always forget something after I get on the road).

He went to a wheel/tire business and asked for spline drive lug nuts for his particular make/model/year car for the Enkeis, and that's what they gave him. He did not purchase the tires or wheels from them, just the lug nuts.

The lug nuts where sheared off the studs. Several members lifted a corner of the car to slide a jack underneath it. With a few more jacks, blocks of wood, etc, they were able to mount the stock wheels and stock lugs nuts (at least 3 per wheel) back on, torque them and drive the car off course. The design of the car, possilbly for aerodynamics, tucks all mechanicals on the underside a little higher than the body line, or lowest part of the brake rotors. Not even the exhaust was really scratched.

I'm not a mechanic, but the mechanics theories there was that the lug nuts where the incorrect size, but they were just small enough to grip the outer edge of the threads (as I mentioned, they torqued to 75-80 ft/lbs without complaint).

Hopefully, the only damage is to the body and brakes.[/QUOTE]
 
Sounds fishy to me. 80 pounds of torque without problem but they couldn't handle a couple turns? And all nuts on all four wheels strip and come off at the same time? I'm not convinced.
 
Even if he did not tighten them, it would have been obvious when driving from his pit spot, to the staging area, or tech SHOULD have gotten it. Like I said, I presented as what I found on the internet. I'm still skeptical.
 
Baz said:
At least he put the handbrake on.
Click to expand...
/bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif

Well....I forgot my hood-pins ONCE at the Glenn.
(Yes it left a mark also /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smirk.gif )
 
I'm thinking maybe the wheel studs were too short for the wheels, and the lugs probably were the "right size", grabbed just enough thread to 'torque to spec', but just didn't grab enough thread to stay on once the forces were greater than just rolling the car from the paddock to the course.
 
Just for some added trivia, what NOT to use to tighten lugnuts: an electric impact wrench. A friend just recently got one, checked the brakes on one of the four wheels on a 40' boat trailer. Put the nuts back ON with it, set off on a 2K mile tow and promptly lost two of the six studs to tensile failure! We spent the better part of a Saturday afternoon replacing the six studs he'd stretched. Bad ju-ju!
OFF is fine. Torque 'em back ON by hand.
 
Besides, Doc., There is nothing worse than getting a flat out on the road and then finding that some bozo has the lug nuts imacted on so tight that they cannot be removed without super-human strength! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/mad.gif
 
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