Can you teach me more about lug bolts & related tire tools?

But the extension is not a mile long and anything lost in twisting a 10" extension is too small to measure. However if you have the extension so it's tipped a little, not in line with the axis of the nut/bolt, then some torque is not in the direction of turning the nut, and the longer the extension, the more is lost. This happens when the socket is loose on the nut, not especially lug nuts.

Reply to
micky
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Good idea.

I left my car sitting for a month after I had surgery, and one wheel had no cover. And snow covered up to the top bolt for most of the month.

Months later, I was at Newark Airport and when I got back to the car, it had a flat tire. I had the jack handle/lug wrench, and the bolts were rusted on so tight I had to stand on the wrench to loosen them, I even had to lift my body up and down on a couple, and I broke off 3.

What to do? Leave the car there, have it towed to a shop, take public transportation back to NYC and then to Brooklyn, then take public transportation back the next day, or drive home.

Of course, i drove.

Tire was on the left rear,and every time I turned right it went clop, clop, clop. When I turned left or went straight, it was quiet.

Drove on Route 1 -- fairly quiet because most people on the Turnpike -- to the Holland Tunnel. What to do? If you break down in the Holland Tunnel, you delay traffic when it's heavy (This was Sunday evening, when everyone is coming back from the weekend) so they keep a tow truck there all the time. But they charge you a 100 or 200 in the 1970's which would be at least 500 now. Still, it had worked well so I took the tunnel. Turned east on a small street towards the Brooklyn Bridge and just as I got to Broadway, big thump. Got out. Wheel has come off the car. Last two lug nuts had broken. What to do?

Almost no cars Sunday night, but Monday morning it's lower Manhattan rush hour. Cars everywhere. Not allowed to park on the narrow street I was on. Scouted ahead and found a parking lot a short block North up Broadway, which is one-way South.

Jacked up the car, put it on on the brake drum with no bolts. Lowered the car and drove. Got 8 feet!! Hey, that's pretty good, but then the wheel fell off. Jacked up the car, put it on on the brake drum with no bolts. Lowered the car and drove. Didn't make it 2 inches. Wheel fell off. Jacked up the car, put it on on the brake drum with no bolts. Lowered the car and drove. This time it went 40 feet to Broadway, turned left (the good direction) 100 fett up Broadway, left across the curb and sidewalk into the parking lot. All in one shot. The wheel fell off just as I got fully inside the parking lot.

Took the subway home and returned the next day with tools to punch out the broken lug nuts, and new lugnuts. Took 45 minutes. Done by 10AM. Parking lot guy wanted to charge me for 3 spaces because I was parked sideways, but he caved easily when I said it was only 10 and he'd fill the spaces, and he only charged me 1.5 times the daily rate. (His point was that the lot filled up by 9, but I guess I was right that some people came later.)

Reply to
micky

I've never heard it and I don't think it's true.

It's a multipurpose tool. The tapered end is for removing hubcaps and wheel covers, and the length is determined by what works for a jack handle, on the millions of cars which have used this wrench as the bumper jack handle. If they made it longer, and didn't use a stronger grade of steel, one could bend it by standing on it. Indeed, I did bend one that way, and that was when I weighed 170. If it was longer, a lot of them would end up bent. Once they're bent, they're never as strong again.

Reply to
micky

Apparently most people don't even change their own tires, if you figure that 90% of women don't and that's 45% of drivers. Plus what, 10, 20,

30% of men. Of those who do, most don't even think of standing on it, or, I suspect, are afraid to do so.

Of course there are very few flats these days so getting good data is harder.

Reply to
micky

This video tested a ten foot extension with the torque wrench.

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Reply to
ultred ragnusen

Garrett turbocharger compressor nuts are bi-hex (and cack handed). I had to special order a 8mm bi-hex 1/4 drive socket as it's not a stock item. You won't find bi-hex 1/4 drive sockets even in "pro" socket sets.

All nuts/bolts used by a Derby based jet engine maker are bi-hex flange nuts/bolts. They are much lighter (and unbelievably expensive when made from aero grade nickel alloy) as the bi-hex size is at least a size smaller - there are 12 points to drive it so it's stronger.

Reply to
Peter Hill

None of which are British.

Range Rover and Jaguar are now JLR and owned by Indian steel firm TATA.

Nissan never were British, Japanese forever. Nissan built their reputation on British and German engineering using an American production system that the Americans refused to use. The OHV "A" series engine that powered the Cherry and Sunny though the 60's and 70's was derived from a licensed copy of the BMC "A" series engine (original Mini). The SOHC "L" (also bottom end of "KA" and "Z") series engines that powered 510/710/810/910/Violet/Bluebirds/Zeds was a licensed copy of a Mercedes 6 cylinder design (had 2 cylinders lopped off for 4 pot versions). Both had been improved to the extent that the fee was no longer payable.

Yes new Q30's are being made in Sunderland, UK.

Reply to
Peter Hill

The French at least have a word for "inch" which translates as "thumb" and is a colloquial measure of length. They also have a word for "foot" which would be recognised as a length.

There are lots of other historical French units, some of which are still used in particular applications in (UK) English such as printing (e.g. points).

Reply to
Graham J

I was talking to someone recently who is in the car rescue / roadside assistance business and he was saying that one of the growing problems he sees is that cars come without spare tyres and an increasing number of call outs are to people where the tyre cannot be repaired with a can of squirty gunk and there is no spare in the vehicle.

Reply to
alan_m

Most Jaguars built ain't convertibles.

According to Nissan UK, the US is their second largest export market after the EU.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Nor is the Mini - BMW owned.

But I doubt the OP is referring to ownership, given how many US brands ain't wholly owned by the US. I'd guess he is referring to where they are assembled. But even then various parts can come from factories anywhere.

Actually first saw the light of day in 1947 in the Austin A30. Must have been one of the longest production runs of any basic engine.

Nissan UK says the US is its second largest export market for UK assembled models. After the EU.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

the EU will soon be gone, and good f****ng riddance.

Reply to
James Wilkinson Sword

Long live the bureaucracy of un-elected EU technocrats!

Reply to
alan_m

I'd like their testicles attached to the HT end of a car's coil.

Reply to
James Wilkinson Sword

Cracks are more likely to start at a *corner*. That's why crankpins on a crankshaft have a radius at the fillet. The radius also keeps the impact forces back away from the very tip of the hex point.

It is thicker and made of a stronger material.

They are stronger because they need to be in order to resist the

*impact* forces.

A hex socket is much less likely to round off a nut.

Reply to
Xeno

It's off topic, but I put the following related items in my trunk kit, even though I prefer to repair my flats at home by removing the tire completely from the wheel and then using a one-piece patchplug that both seals and fills the hole from the inside out.

  1. Compressor (operated off the cigarette lighter socket)
  2. External plug kit (they work just fine even though they're not approved)
  3. Magnetic LED light from HF (so you can see what you're doing at night)
Reply to
ultred ragnusen

I can't please everyone with the details, but I do appreciate learning from others who have the intelligence to understand and convey the details better than I do.

I wouldn't think of not using a torque wrench, but, I did watch a dozen videos last night on how to /calibrate/ the torque wrench.

The problem is not in twisting the calibration mechanism, but in having a known good standard. A lot of the calibration videos use the Harbor Freight $40 Item #68283 "digital torque adapter", which seems like a neat tool if I didn't already have a bunch of old-style torque wrenches already.

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Since my old-style "made in usa" (so you know it's old!) Craftsman torque wrench is likely still accurate, I can use that as my calibration standard.

There's value to doing a job right, in and of itself.

For example, when you choose a tire, you choose it by the specifications, and then when you mount it, you mount the red or yellow dots (depending on the brand) next to the valve stem, and you clean and statically balance the wheel sans tire, and then you mount the tire by the dots, and then you statically balance the assembly (often it takes no weight) and then you take it for a drive at speed for your dynamic balance test (almost never do you feel any vibration that would indicate a dynamic imbalance at speed).

Same with repairing a puncture, where we all have successfully plugged a hole from the outside with the rope plugs, which aren't approved by the RMA but we all know that method to work just fine.

I get pleasure out of the method of marking the tire (so that I don't change the balance), breaking the bead with the HF bead-breaking tool, and then dismounting the tire with a different HF tire mounting tool, then marking the location of the injury from the inside, removing the offending protruding nail (or whatever), honing the hole from the outside to 1/4 inch standard size (or whatever was chosen), buffing the inside area to remove non-sticky layers, applying the cement and waiting for it to get tacky, applying the cement to the patchplug and then pulling it through with pliers, rolling down the patchplug from the inside from the centerline outward to force out air pockets, and snipping off the protruding metal tip, and then covering the inside area with the blacktop formula (whatever that black gunk is made up of).

After that, if desired, I replace the valve stem, and then I remount the tire on the marks made prior to dismounting, and then, after setting the bead at about 60psi (whatever it takes to pop) and airing up the tire to

40psi, I doublecheck static balance, and if necessary, I rotate the tires on the vehicle or put it back where it was, making sure to torque the lug nuts evenly to 85 foot pounds.

Some people get pleasure in doing things the "right" way; others don't care to.

I get a flat about once every couple of years, where it's almost always a screw (dunno why but it is). If flats used to be more common than they are now, you'll have to explain to me why.

If it's true that flats are less common now than before, than the natural question to ask is: a. Are tires more resistant to punctures now (what with steel belts)? b. Or are screws and nails less prevalent on the roadways nowadays?

It has to be one of the above if it's true that flats are less common now on radials than they were in the olden days of bias-ply tires.

Reply to
ultred ragnusen

I have heard many times that nowadays, people don't get flats as often, but I can't see why unless radials, by their very nature, are more resistant to flats than were the old-style bias-ply tires.

I don't count the averages, especially since I repair neighbors' tires for them at times, but I think I have been repairing at least one flat a year, what with four cars now in the driveway and a few neighbors whom I help out (and who help me in return).

So I average one flat a year, roughly, where I use the RMA-approved patch-plug method, which can only be done from the inside. On the road, I would use the rope-plug method, which, we all know, works just fine (even thought it's not RMA approved).

For me, it's just so very satisfying to fix a flat at home.

I just pull the wheel, mark the location, break the bead, remove the tire, repair the hole from the inside out using the RMA-approved method, replace the valve stem if necessary, remount the tire, test in the pool, check the static balance, and then mount the tire back on the vehicle (rotating other tires if desired) to the proper torque spec.

It just feels good to do things the right way.

Reply to
ultred ragnusen

And given the EU is Nissan UK's largest export market they will likely soon be gone too. Along with lots of others - especially in financial services.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

I get a few a year. Mainly nails from incompetant builders. (Builders have an average IQ of 50).

To save ten quid at the local garage? You're nuts.

Reply to
James Wilkinson Sword

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