tight wheel nuts

M cebee

The wheel nuts on my van are always jam tight and impossible to remove

i think its the hydraulic yolk at the garage that does it

i tried the brace with an extension bar and still no joy

is a blowtorch the answer or should i get the garage to loosen them and then hand tighten them myself

Al Capwned

However you get them off, you want to do more than hand tighten them when you get them back on - I'd rather have them too tight than too loose.....

Owen

One trick is to tighten them a little more, then slacken. It'll break the bond the bolts have.

Antomus Prime

Have you tried to turn the wheel brace clockwise first? You wont feel them move because theyre that tight already but it usually works, same principal as opening over tightened plumbing fittings.

Other than that the only thing I could think of is eating a can of spinnach and hope your arms go like popeyes :P

Edit: Someone always gets in there right before me!!!

Mr Benevolent

Personally I always loosen them by jumping on the standard breaker bar. Works every time.

jmrc

Are you trying to turn them the correct way? common mistake, remember " righty tighty, lefty loosey" or clockwise to tighten, anti clock to loosen.

best to go back to the garage, those guy's some times get a bit carried away with the air gun often with the torque set too high.

Turner

Get a longer breaker bar.

If you can get one 6 foot long and slide it over your wheel brace you should be able to undo the nuts with one hand.

The principles of levers and all that.

M cebee

jmrc wrote: »

Are you trying to turn them the correct way? common mistake, remember " righty tighty, lefty loosey" or clockwise to tighten, anti clock to loosen.

best to go back to the garage, those guy's some times get a bit carried away with the air gun often with the torque set too high.

Is that really a common mistake haha

il try the longer bar and a clockwise twist
before loosening

Antomus Prime

M cebee wrote: »

Is that really a common mistake haha

il try the longer bar and a clockwise twist
before loosening

NO!!

If that longer bar and clockwise twist doesnt do the job then bring it to a garage

bcmf

Had this before.
Even the garage couldnt get them open with all their 'guns'.
Had to get an extra long breaker bar and had to jump up and down on it before they loosened.

h3000

Give the bolt a tap of a hammer or the back of the wheel brace directly on, it can often help to release the bond.

jmrc wrote: »

Are you trying to turn them the correct way? common mistake, remember " righty tighty, lefty loosey" or clockwise to tighten, anti clock to loosen.

M cebee wrote: »

Is that really a common mistake haha

Not always.

I remember we used to have a Mazda van and the threads on the wheele studs on the passenger side of the van were reversed (as in Righty loosey). My dad was getting a big job done on the van in a very respected indy mechanic in Limerick and they could not get the wheels off and were about to cut the bolts. I being a very shy 10 or 11 year old whisperd to my Dad about the threads been reversed who in turn mentioned it to the mechanic. They tried righty loosey and it worked. The mechanic was really impressed and gave me £10 (about 20 years ago) and told me come back in a few years and he would give me a job. I was delighted.

mgbgt1978

^^^^ So what are you working at now ? Did the mechanic bug bite ?
Also a lot of trucks have the left-hand thread wheel nuts on the L/H side. It's to do with centrifugal force loosening the nuts when the wheels turn anti-clockwise.

Owen

Standing on the bar doesn't always work either, I've broken a wheel brace before like that. The socket split open around the wheel nut.

peasant

I hate to be the oracle of doom, but please keep one thing in mind:

Constant overtightening of nuts/bolts will over-stretch the metal and fatigue it to breaking point. If you're lucky, everything will snap while you're jumping up and down on the long breaker bar ...if you're not so lucky it might happen at the next pothole at speed.

If you find that the wheelnuts on your car have been overtightened, pls bring it back to whoever hammered them on ...and bring a torq wrench.

The torq wrench you bring for two reasons:

1) so that your friendly mechanic can use it to torque the nuts with the CORRECT momentum.

2) so that you can hit your friendly mechanic over the head with it so that he remembers for the next time


The cavalier attitude of most garagages and tyre service places to correct torque settings is one of my major bugbears.

fletch

Buy a torque wrench...you'd be surprised at how "loose" wheel nuts are actually meant to be.

Tea drinker

they usually don't overtighten alloys as that could easily damage them. They seem to take revenge on steel wheels. Not that overtightening here will do no damage.

dr.fuzzenstein

peasant wrote: »

The cavalier attitude of most garagages and tyre service places to correct torque settings is one of my major bugbears.

Plus their cavalier attitude to balancing rear wheels, using hammer-on weights for alloy wheels, hammering new weights over old ones, not balancing the rear wheels, inability to perform correct tracking of any car newer than 1955, having no clue about what tire is good for what, but yes, the torque setting is a big one, especially down here in "the counthry", most of these slack-jawed yokels have never seen a torque wrench before.
Official setting on anything: FT. Fully tight, i.e. as tight as she'll go, to fcuk.

OP, I once tried to remove the centre nut from the timing belt pulley on her MX5, a 6 foot bar would not do it, in the end towed it to a garage and the mechanic got it off with a battery powered impact wrench of all things. So if longer lever doesn't work, go for a bigger gun. Or try getting help from him:

h3000

mgbgt1978 wrote: »

^^^^ So what are you working at now ? Did the mechanic bug bite ?

Ended up working in IT unfortunately but a mate of mine bought a house with a mahoosive shed/garage (barn) last year so we are trying to do a bit now.