The only time I ever came close to loosing a wheel was after I left a garage that tried to tell me the ball joints were shot on my '66 GTO. The SOBs had loosened the lug nuts so the wheel would wobble. It started to vibrate a block away, so i pulled into a parking lot and found ll the lug nuts were loose. I tightened them up and went back, then read them the riot act in front of people who were waiting for their cars. They first tried to claim that they weren't loose, then that if they were, they were that way when I came in for the lube job.
.............. You have to be a bit careful about the kind of "grease" you use on rubber. Modern rubber compounds are very resistant in general, but it has not always been so.
Traditionally soap, or even soapy water was used.. Ru-Glyde is or was a rubber cleaner and conditioner that was basically a water soluble soap. It did not attack rubber.
Now, I have a newish Toyota Solara with the doughnut spare tire. The spare has never been mounted but has a VERY slow leak so that every 6 months or so it leaks down and triggers the low pressure sensor. I dont think it would be very easy to find this leak, and was thinking about just dosing it with a compound to seal it from the inside.
Does anyone know of a commercial product made to do this?
I have avoided the use of Fix A Flat type materials, and dont want to use anything that will put water inside the rim.
It was all I had available, when the factory supplied scissor jack was too tall to slip under the axle. It was dark and pouring rain. I was barely out of the road, and sitting in mud. You get creative in situations like that. :)
I had just finished Basic Training and had spent a few days at home. I was getting ready to leave for Ft. Rucker the next morning. It was about a 700 mile trip, and they knew it. If I had had more time, I would have lubed it myself. I never went back to that place, but I heard they pulled a few other stunts and lost a lot of business. I figured that if I could tell off a D.I. while in Basic and survive, I might as well tell them what crooks they were. :)
Even on dry, level ground the jack was over an inch too high. After that, I carried three pieces of 2" * 12" in different lengths behind the seat to drive up on.
I was at my dad's house to pick up that '66 GTO, and no where near any Army base. Basic was at Ft. Knox which was several hundreds of miles away, and the only mililtary base within a two hour drive was Wright-Patterson AFB.
Slime and tire pressure monitors are not supposed to exixt on the same planet, much less the same tire. You really need to get it into a dip tank and find out exactly where the leak is. If it's going flat in less than 6 months you WILL be able to find the leak.
Take off the spare. Wipe it clean, take it in the house. Fill the bat tub with enough water to set the tire in and cover over the rim, (even better if you could lay it flat but most normal tubs don't allow this). With the tire full of air you should find the leak easily. That slow I would suspect leakage from the core or around the stem.
Then repair it. Fix a flat type stuff will wipe out a TPS real quick.
perhaps then you have not read the factory manual on many cars - most of mine REQUIRE anti-seize on the lug nuts. Perhaps it is not normal for big trucks or something.
it's not essential on nuts with a closed end. but an open end, where salted water can penetrate the threads more easily, then you can have major seizure problems. and a [consumer applied at consumer expense] preventative saves the manufacturer from having to spend a few cents on better wheel nuts. i'm not kidding.
Only on one side. My brother briefly had a 67 dodge van we briefly brought back to life, but it only ever got used as a storage barn. As we getting it street legal, we fought for hours with the rims on that side, before my memory dredged up an old 'Model Garage' episode from popular science magazine, which described same dilemma.
Of course it was only on one side. It would kind of defeat their purpose to have them on both sides, wouldn't it? Anyone who worked on an old Dodge knew that.
All the dedicated tire shops in this town use torque wrenches for putting on, only time impact wrenches are used is taking them off. One reason I use tire shops instead of a wally world or Sears.
No - Paint them. High heat paint on the hub and back of the wheel will keep the rust away from the non-contact areas,and won't let the rust get going on the contact faces.
And if the tires stick to the inside lips of steel rims, take the tires off and sandblast & paint the insides of the rims too. This is a good reason to find a second set of stock rims for your car, so you can mess with this at your leisure before buying new tires - the paint really needs to dry for a few days before mounting tires, or Powder Coat them.
When you change a wheel, then you can either grab a spray can and a wire brush and put a fresh coat of paint on the mating surfaces to seal the rust out.
You could put a very thin coat of Anti-Seize or a Synthetic high-temp grease on the contact areas where the paint rubbed off to keep the rust out - but that can cause problems.
Luckily I'm in So Cal, and it doesn't get that rusty where they lock up solid - just the 'keep them painted' trick will do.
Grease the studs and wheel nuts, never. A tiny dab of anti-seize (and I stress tiny!) is allowed, just enough to get a thin coating on the threads. Be sure to use a torque wrench and check them periodically.
They really need to come up with a protocol for that - say "with anti-seize you torque to 90% of dry" but I've never heard of one.
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