Re: Talk torqueing.

Dave, Thanks for taking the trouble to reply; Yes I too was surprised but when questioned the proprietor stated that with the ever present threat of litigation for some of the most outrageous non-events he felt it was necessary. (BTW my car manual gives the required setting - much to my surprise!" Regards Gee.

Different nuts may require different torques, if they have a different cone angle on the seats. It's unusual these days, but in the days of standard steel wheels and alloy wheels being an after-market tweak, then it was usual that the nuts would be swapped to match the new seats.

This might be of some help to you...

But they were simply replacements for the originals - made out of a different material.

I'd hope so - steel wheels have commonly a taper, alloys not.

FWIW, the only handy manual I have is for the SD1, which had steel and two types of alloy wheels, and three types of nuts. All the same torque, though.

Wheel fixing torque isn't at all critical - if it was they'd supply a torque wrench for fitting the spare in event of a puncture.

And better over tight than over loose, as one customer (some years ago) found out after insisting he tightened his own wheel nuts, he couldn't understand why this information was placed, and signed for, on the invoice - until he came back two days later ranting that one of his wheels had come off and demanding a new wheel, nuts and studs !

Funny how he just walked off when confronted by the accounts dept. copy of the invoice...

Actually some steel wheels can crack around the stud holes if the nuts are overtightened. ISTR Sprites could suffer from this, but I could be wrong and it might have been something else.

The stainless steel that the nuts in the original question are made from is probably about the same strength as the original wheel nuts so the tightening torque shouldn't alter.

Ron Robinson

I have seen it happen on an early Mini (the one with the rubber cone suspension).

Jim

I'm not sure that was down to overtightening - they changed the wheel design pretty early on. Perhaps didn't realise just how hard some would drive them.

Was that a _really_ early Mini ? The very first ones could shed a wheel if you drove in tight figure eights for long enough - the wheel pulled clean over the nut.

As Dave says that may be down to Mini driving technique! Incidentally they went back to rubber cone suspension. Hydrolastic didn't last very long on the Mini because it was far too bouncy.

And just why would anyone drive in figures of eight?

They broke with normal, but hard, road use.

Don't be silly. The steel split round the taper for the nut.