On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:33:00 -0700, Kate wrote:

Gordon,

I found out that I do have lug nuts They are underneath a round cap on
the wheel. The lug wrench is in with the spare tire.

This is really very funny, because for 50 years or more, no one could
see the lugnuts on cars. They all had hubcaps or the larger wheel
covers, precisely to cover the less attractive lug nuts.

Then they started chrome plating lug nuts and letting them show, and
now Kate didn't even realize what was under the hubcap!!!!

I think hubcaps might be a good idea. I once parked my car with one
wheel cover off, and it snowed and the snow didn't melt for weeks,
during which I had shoulder surgery and recuperation, so I didn't move
the car, and when I finally had a flat tire 6 months later, 4 of the 5
studs on that wheel broke when tried to take off the nuts.

It was Sunday at 6 PM so I had to drive home from Newark airport with
only one bolt holding the wheel on.

I should have done more homework before posting this question.

Thanks.

On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:33:00 -0700, Kate wrote:

Gordon,

I found out that I do have lug nuts They are underneath a round cap on
the wheel. The lug wrench is in with the spare tire.

This is really very funny, because for 50 years or more, no one could
see the lugnuts on cars. They all had hubcaps or the larger wheel
covers, precisely to cover the less attractive lug nuts.

Then they started chrome plating lug nuts and letting them show, and
now Kate didn't even realize what was under the hubcap!!!!

I think hubcaps might be a good idea. I once parked my car with one
wheel cover off, and it snowed and the snow didn't melt for weeks,
during which I had shoulder surgery and recuperation, so I didn't move
the car, and when I finally had a flat tire 6 months later, 4 of the 5
studs on that wheel broke when tried to take off the nuts.

It was Sunday at 6 PM so I had to drive home from Newark airport with
only one bolt holding the wheel on.

I should have done more homework before posting this question.

Thanks.

On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:07:11 -0500, "HeyBub"
wrote:

George wrote:
HeyBub wrote:
mm wrote:
I presume they were banned because wheels were falling off the cars?
I once changed my tire and didn't put it on well I guess, and on a
two hour trip I kept hearing knocking but didn't get out of the car
to look. I thought it was the wheel bearing or something, never
having heard a bad wheel bearing. When I got where I was going, I
looked, and it was the lug nuts that were loose. Two of my wheel
holes were oblong and the threads on two or three lug studs were
ruined. I was able to tighten 4 or 5 nuts, but I had to replace
the studs.**

Heh!

I recently bought a couple of tires at Walmart. I watched the
technician re-mount the tires and asked if he was done. "No," he
said, "I've got to get the manager to re-torque on the lugs and
sign-off on the job. Walmart doesn't want you to drive out of here
and have your nuts fall off." Presently the manager appeared with a
torque wrench.
Click-click-clickety-click, followed by: "Your nuts are good to go!"



I think I'll stick with my local evil mom & pop tire place where they
don't need to bring the manager out to verify basic service was done
properly.

I"m impressed that they don't just use an air wrench to put them on
tigher than I can get them off. One time I had to drive a half mile
to a tire store, on a flat, because even standing on the lug wrench,
the bolts wouldn't ocme off. And girls have even more trouble, when
I think a normal girl more than 5'5" ought to be able to remove a tire
when the lug nuts are tightened by hand, but not if done by an air
wrench.

Does any other chain use a manual torque wrench?

I think it's a wise move to have another employee double-check a safety
item.

Plus, here's a story from just today about how Walmart is involved in the
fight to keep nuts from falling off.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32784197...sexual_health/

On 15 Sep 2009 12:23:44 GMT, Jim Yanik wrote:

ddl@danlan.*com (Dan Lanciani) wrote in
:

In article m,
(Jules) writes:

| And a sufficiently-organized group probably has a whole array of
| different shaped keys at their disposal...

I've always thought that one of those "universal" sockets or a big
stud extractor might do the trick. There used to be a type of lug nut
lock that took an actual key in the center. Until it was unlocked the
outside just spun. This seemed conceptually neater than a
funny-shaped nut but I'm afraid it might not stand up to being hit
with a hammer...

Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com


you can buy sockets at Harbor Freight for removing wheel locks when you
don't have a key.Just like you can buy "slim jims" at Advance Auto Parts
for opening locked car doors.

You can slim jim most cars, but I think it's a lot harder to get wheel
locks off.

And the point is to stop the average lunkhead, not to stop the most
well equipped, who won't go after 180 dollar wheels, but will want to
take apart a 100G car they have stolen, and sell all the parts.

I was washing my car at a do-it-yourself car wash in Indiana several
years ago, on Xmas, and I locked my keys in the car. I found a
convenience store only 30 yars away and was asking her for a wire
hanger, and a guy in the store offered to open the door for me.
Tunred out he was a pro locksmith. Not only did he have the slim
jim but an assorment of tools to pry the rubber away from the window a
little bit to make it easier to use the slim jim. It took him from 5
to 10 minutes and he woudln't accept money, because it was Xmas.

Anyhow, if you need to break into your car this way, use the passenger
door or the rear door. A friend locked himslef out and the
small-town police came and did it for free, but the mechanism got
diconnected in the process and he had to climb over the console for
the rest of the day until we got to my house and I took apart the door
and reconnected things.

"mm" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:07:11 -0500, "HeyBub"
wrote:

George wrote:
HeyBub wrote:
mm wrote:
I presume they were banned because wheels were falling off the cars?
I once changed my tire and didn't put it on well I guess, and on a
two hour trip I kept hearing knocking but didn't get out of the car
to look. I thought it was the wheel bearing or something, never
having heard a bad wheel bearing. When I got where I was going, I
looked, and it was the lug nuts that were loose. Two of my wheel
holes were oblong and the threads on two or three lug studs were
ruined. I was able to tighten 4 or 5 nuts, but I had to replace
the studs.**

Heh!

I recently bought a couple of tires at Walmart. I watched the
technician re-mount the tires and asked if he was done. "No," he
said, "I've got to get the manager to re-torque on the lugs and
sign-off on the job. Walmart doesn't want you to drive out of here
and have your nuts fall off." Presently the manager appeared with a
torque wrench.
Click-click-clickety-click, followed by: "Your nuts are good to go!"



I think I'll stick with my local evil mom & pop tire place where they
don't need to bring the manager out to verify basic service was done
properly.

I"m impressed that they don't just use an air wrench to put them on
tigher than I can get them off. One time I had to drive a half mile
to a tire store, on a flat, because even standing on the lug wrench,
the bolts wouldn't ocme off. And girls have even more trouble, when
I think a normal girl more than 5'5" ought to be able to remove a tire
when the lug nuts are tightened by hand, but not if done by an air
wrench.

Does any other chain use a manual torque wrench?

they install the lug nets with air tools, but torque them to spec with a
manual wrench. or they should. a bunch of lawsuits about not putting them on
properly forced most large chains to do so.

Smitty Two wrote:
In article
,
stan wrote:

As they say cut the cloth to fit the situation. My father once knew a
very affluent/influential, person (Lord ....Sir Somebody Hunt?) IIRC,
who used to take an older smaller car and wear an old raincoat to his
business meetings; rather than take his family's Roll Royce. He said
it attracted less attention away from the business at hand, and
nothing was ever stolen form the smaller/cheaper car. Maybe there's a
lesson there?

Yeah, the lesson is, Rolls are meant to stay parked. Years ago I dated a
woman whose father had one. He mostly drove a station wagon with fake
wood grain sides. Every time he took the Rolls out of the garage, it
broke down within a few miles.

Sam Walton, of Wally World fame, drove an old Ford pickup even after he
hit the billion mark.

--
aem sends...

mm wrote:
P&M

On Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:34:50 -0700 (PDT), DerbyDad03
wrote:

I presume [knockoff wheel bolts] were banned because wheels were falling off the cars?
I once changed my tire and didn't put it on well I guess, and on a two
hour trip I kept hearing knocking but didn't get out of the car to
look. I thought it was the wheel bearing or something, never having
heard a bad wheel bearing. When I got where I was going, I looked,
and it was the lug nuts that were loose. Two of my wheel holes were
oblong and the threads on two or three lug studs were ruined. I was
able to tighten 4 or 5 nuts, but I had to replace the studs.**

In case it's not obvious, Because the wheel moving on the hub had let
the wheel hit the studs and damage the threads on at least two studs.
The same reason at least two of the bolt holes in the wheel were
oblong.

Now that's when I had to screw up 5 nuts and I still came close to
succeeding.

Close to letting my wheel fall off. Also I think there are a lot more
threads per inch on the those little studs than on what a knockoff
uses. At least for a race car, they just start it on, then hit it
and it spins two or three revolutions and it's tight, right?

If people like me have only one knockoff, I'm sure some
of them will not tighten it and the wheel will fall off.

**That led to more problems. Instead of replacing the studs, I got an
old brake drum, with part of the wheel bearing iirc, and just
exchanged them. I knew you weren't supposed to mate two non-mated
halves of a wheel bearing, but I did it anyhow. I drove around for a
day and it seemed fine. The next day I set off from NYC to Chicago. I
was just north of Pittsburgh when the rider driving told me she heard
something if she headed straight ahead. Sure enough, I was melting
the bearing onto the spindle. Fortunately I had all my old parts in
the trunk and the guy at the dealer was able to put me back togeher
again for 8 dollars. He had to get his boss to use an acetelyne torch
to remove the bearing from the spindle. He's was proud that he didn't
ruin the spindle.
"the dealer was able to put me back togeher again for 8 dollars."

$8? What year was that...1922?

No, 1972 or 3, and yeah, it was amazingly cheap. Even more so when you
hear all he did. I thought I was going to have to pay 50, 100, 150 or
more, trying to remember prices then, but he only charged 7 dollars
and change.

I wanted to go back to Chicago for a visit so I put a notice up at
NYU, it probably was, looking for riders. I got two, a girl and a
guy who used to work in a political job for Mayor Daley (which was a
bad thing). We're on Interstate 80, a new road then, that goes
east-west across northern, entirely rural, and partly wilderness Pa.
and we're almost to Ohio. She's driving and she tells me that when she
goes even to the left or right a bit, it's quiet, but when she points
straight ahead, there's a noise. I drive for a bit and she is right!
I pull over and for the wheel I had fiddled with 2 days earlier, the
hub is too hot to touch. I just held my hand near it and I could feel
the warmth. But, aha, there is a ramp only 200 yards ahead of me and
a gas station at the top of the ramp. So I go there. But he tells me,
I can't do it. You'll have to go to the dealer. Well the dealer is
only 3 miles north in a tiny town. Looking at the map, I see it is
Mercer, Pa, just as I recalled from 37 years ago!

I drive in, tell the guy the problem, and the first thing he does is
look at the clock. It's 10 to 5, closing time. Immediately I think
he's going to tell me to come back tomorrow, which means I'll have to
pay for a motel for all 3 of us, probably one room for me and the guy
and another room for the girl, plus I'll have to buy them dinner. If
it were just me, I could have slept in a corn field. The whole reason
I got riders was to save money.

But he doesn't say anything and he starts in on it. After taking off
the tire and the hub/brakedrum iirc, he tells me that the inner race
of the bearing is fused to the spindle (it was so hot). For those who
don't know, the spindle is like the axle, but just the outer 6 inches
of it, and it turns left and right because it's a front wheel. He
doesn't think he can get the bearing off without ruining the spindle,
and he doesn't stock the spindle. Darn, I think, the junk yards are
closing in 5 minutes, I'll have to come back tomorrow after all.

I'll get my boss, he says. The boss comes and lights the acetylene
torch, and goes at it. In less than a minute, iirc, he turns off the
torch and says, "You were lucky. I got it off without ruining the
spindle. I have a bearing in stock and I think you ruined the brake
drum too. Oh, I say, I have my original brake drum in the trunk."
I"m vague here, because I thought he didn't provide any parts, but if
he cut off the original inner race, he must have replaced the bearing.
And he must have pushed out the orificial outer race from the brake
drum, because he's not going to do what I did, use halves of two
different bearings (either both used or one used and one new, either
way they don't match). So he sold me a new wheel bearing. Maybe that
is what made it cost 7.60. I don't remember watching him push the
bearing out or in, but any how, he had me ready to leave by about
5:15, 25 minutes total, and the bill was 7.60. I gave them 10 dollars
and said the rest was for the coffee they made for themselves. I
wanted to yell about how cheap they were. Maybe because it wasn't NYC
or Chicago. But I didn't want to make them feel they weren't charging
enough.

One of them may have left already but I apologize to whoever is there
for keeping them after 5:00 and he says, "It doesnt' matter. I live 5
minutes from here anyhow." And no rush hour traffic in NW Pa.

Later it occurred to me, or maybe he told me, that if I had driven
much farther and it had gotten much hotter, the bearing might have
melted, and then cooled when I parked, and fused into one piece, and I
couldn't even have driven the car. That would have meant a tow
truck, maybe many miles, and more parts and much more money yet.

And yet here I am last year, 36 years later, letting a moderate
medical problem lead to emergency, probably life-at-risk surgery.
It's like I haven't learned a thing.

I must have been misled, because the whole thing only took 45 minutes
and I spent 10 dollars.

Mechanic may have had a kid or sibling your age, and took pity on you
young adventurers.

I'm no mechanic, but I have gone out of my way to help stranded young
clueless folks at times, as long as they don't act like assholes or
know-it-alls. (even if all the help I could give was in getting their
car out of traffic, and hauling them someplace safe where they could get
picked up, or to an open real garage.) Cell phones seem to have cut way
down on the number of stranded motorists I see, since 911 will send tow
trucks for non-emergencies.

--
aem sends...

charlie wrote:
"mm" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:07:11 -0500, "HeyBub"
wrote:

George wrote:
HeyBub wrote:
mm wrote:
I presume they were banned because wheels were falling off the cars?
I once changed my tire and didn't put it on well I guess, and on a
two hour trip I kept hearing knocking but didn't get out of the car
to look. I thought it was the wheel bearing or something, never
having heard a bad wheel bearing. When I got where I was going, I
looked, and it was the lug nuts that were loose. Two of my wheel
holes were oblong and the threads on two or three lug studs were
ruined. I was able to tighten 4 or 5 nuts, but I had to replace
the studs.**
Heh!

I recently bought a couple of tires at Walmart. I watched the
technician re-mount the tires and asked if he was done. "No," he
said, "I've got to get the manager to re-torque on the lugs and
sign-off on the job. Walmart doesn't want you to drive out of here
and have your nuts fall off." Presently the manager appeared with a
torque wrench.
Click-click-clickety-click, followed by: "Your nuts are good to go!"


I think I'll stick with my local evil mom & pop tire place where they
don't need to bring the manager out to verify basic service was done
properly.
I"m impressed that they don't just use an air wrench to put them on
tigher than I can get them off. One time I had to drive a half mile
to a tire store, on a flat, because even standing on the lug wrench,
the bolts wouldn't ocme off. And girls have even more trouble, when
I think a normal girl more than 5'5" ought to be able to remove a tire
when the lug nuts are tightened by hand, but not if done by an air
wrench.

Does any other chain use a manual torque wrench?

they install the lug nets with air tools, but torque them to spec with a
manual wrench. or they should. a bunch of lawsuits about not putting them on
properly forced most large chains to do so.


The air wrench guys are supposed to use calibrated 'torque sticks'
between the wrench and the socket. Discount Tire does- they have a row
on the wall, all color coded. Like the clutch on a cordless drill, they
only let the nut tighten so far.

--
aem sends...

aemeijers wrote in
:




The air wrench guys are supposed to use calibrated 'torque sticks'
between the wrench and the socket. Discount Tire does- they have a row
on the wall, all color coded. Like the clutch on a cordless drill,
they only let the nut tighten so far.




And those sticks are calibrated for a particular output by the air ratchet.
If the rattle gun is out of spec or set too high, or the wrong gun is used,
the torque stick will happily allow (sometimes severe) overtorque on the
lug nuts.

This is why you can end up with four or five wheel nuts all requiring
vastly different levels of removal effort by you the next time you have to
tackle them.

A manual torque wrench, properly operated, is the only way to go for final
tightening.


--
Tegger

On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:56:12 -0400, aemeijers
wrote:

charlie wrote:
"mm" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:07:11 -0500, "HeyBub"
wrote:

George wrote:
HeyBub wrote:
mm wrote:
I presume they were banned because wheels were falling off the cars?
I once changed my tire and didn't put it on well I guess, and on a
two hour trip I kept hearing knocking but didn't get out of the car
to look. I thought it was the wheel bearing or something, never
having heard a bad wheel bearing. When I got where I was going, I
looked, and it was the lug nuts that were loose. Two of my wheel
holes were oblong and the threads on two or three lug studs were
ruined. I was able to tighten 4 or 5 nuts, but I had to replace
the studs.**
Heh!

I recently bought a couple of tires at Walmart. I watched the
technician re-mount the tires and asked if he was done. "No," he
said, "I've got to get the manager to re-torque on the lugs and
sign-off on the job. Walmart doesn't want you to drive out of here
and have your nuts fall off." Presently the manager appeared with a
torque wrench.
Click-click-clickety-click, followed by: "Your nuts are good to go!"


I think I'll stick with my local evil mom & pop tire place where they
don't need to bring the manager out to verify basic service was done
properly.
I"m impressed that they don't just use an air wrench to put them on
tigher than I can get them off. One time I had to drive a half mile
to a tire store, on a flat, because even standing on the lug wrench,
the bolts wouldn't ocme off. And girls have even more trouble, when
I think a normal girl more than 5'5" ought to be able to remove a tire
when the lug nuts are tightened by hand, but not if done by an air
wrench.

Does any other chain use a manual torque wrench?

they install the lug nets with air tools, but torque them to spec with a
manual wrench. or they should. a bunch of lawsuits about not putting them on
properly forced most large chains to do so.

It's been a long time since I've had a tire put on by anyone, hmmm,
except the guys I buy used tires, who do use air wrenches. I don't
know if they are decently calibrated, because I think they are also
the only ones who have taken off my wheels. Wait, once I took off a
wheel to replace a left tie-rod end. It came off okay, after the
tire guys had put it on.

That's for the past 7 years. It's hard to remember the previous car.
Maybe the last few years were like these years.


The air wrench guys are supposed to use calibrated 'torque sticks'
between the wrench and the socket. Discount Tire does- they have a row
on the wall, all color coded. Like the clutch on a cordless drill, they
only let the nut tighten so far.

That would be good.

Kate wrote:
Tony Hwang wrote:
Kate wrote:
I just got a new car and the wheels do not have lug nuts on them.

Do I need to be concerned about the wheels being stolen?

Would you live with it the way it is, or pay $45 for four keyed or
locking lug nuts?

Everyone is always so helpful so I wanted to post here even though it
is off topic.

Many thanks.

Kate
Hi,
We have 4 cars in the family(one for each of us).
When we get new car we have them installed. Lug nut is easy to
remove with a tool(socket) made for that. Just making it little
inconvenient for would be thief.

I found the lug wrench. I should have taken the time to check the spare
tire area.
Hi,
Not the normal wrench. Lug nut has key for that particular set.
Mechanics use a tool(wrench) to remove it say when the key is lost.
When you have a set installed it comes with a key for the set and it has
a number. When key is lost you can order a replacement key using that
no. But most often people don't safe keep the number. It happened to my
son's car. He misplaced the key and being unable to find it, I went to
tool shop and found a counter threaded socket which will bite into lug
not. I use air tool with compressor in my garage. Nothing to it removing
it. Lincoln? the dealer has to charge a set of it? I always make them
give me a free set. BTW, been a long time since we ever bought domestic
car. I still like Ford trucks tho.

Steve Barker wrote:
Kate wrote:
I just got a new car and the wheels do not have lug nuts on them.

Do I need to be concerned about the wheels being stolen?

Would you live with it the way it is, or pay $45 for four keyed or
locking lug nuts?

Everyone is always so helpful so I wanted to post here even though it
is off topic.

Many thanks.

Kate

If there's no lug nuts, then what holds the wheels on?

s
Hi,
She meant locking lug nut I guess.

Tony Hwang wrote:
Steve Barker wrote:
Kate wrote:
I just got a new car and the wheels do not have lug nuts on them.

Do I need to be concerned about the wheels being stolen?

Would you live with it the way it is, or pay $45 for four keyed or
locking lug nuts?

Everyone is always so helpful so I wanted to post here even though it
is off topic.

Many thanks.

Kate

If there's no lug nuts, then what holds the wheels on?

s
Hi,
She meant locking lug nut I guess.
Yes, that is what I meant.

I've heard of driving on two or three studs, but driving on
one sounds a bit daredevil.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"mm" wrote in message
...

I think hubcaps might be a good idea. I once parked my car
with one
wheel cover off, and it snowed and the snow didn't melt for
weeks,
during which I had shoulder surgery and recuperation, so I
didn't move
the car, and when I finally had a flat tire 6 months later,
4 of the 5
studs on that wheel broke when tried to take off the nuts.

It was Sunday at 6 PM so I had to drive home from Newark
airport with
only one bolt holding the wheel on.

I'm not sure about chain store policies. I've seen some
"torque limiters" which come in different colors. I've taken
to carrying a 25 inch breaker bar, and a couple of sockets
with me. The criss cross lug wrenches help, but not everyone
carries one.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"mm" wrote in message
...

I"m impressed that they don't just use an air wrench to put
them on
tigher than I can get them off. One time I had to drive a
half mile
to a tire store, on a flat, because even standing on the lug
wrench,
the bolts wouldn't ocme off. And girls have even more
trouble, when
I think a normal girl more than 5'5" ought to be able to
remove a tire
when the lug nuts are tightened by hand, but not if done by
an air
wrench.

Does any other chain use a manual torque wrench?

On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:31:58 -0400, mm wrote:
So does Ferrari provide owners with the appropriate torque wrench, right
there with the jack and spare tire?
The Ferrari came with a lead hammer to wallop the nut into place. That was
standard on more expensive sports cars at the time. I had them on my
MG-B in the 1960s.

This is because the cars were made for racing, and this makes pitstops
go faster, right?

Well, once upon a time pretty much everything had a single spin-on nut, I
suppose - presumably a hang-over from the [horse and] cart days of old.
Cars still have a single nut holding the wheel hub onto the axle, of
course, but at some point in time people started separating the wheel/tire
from the hub and using several nuts (or bolts) to hold the two together.

Not sure of the logic of retaining the single spin-on nut for high-end
sports cars - it might have just been a stylistic* thing more than
anything (lose a single spin-on nut and you're in trouble - plus having
one big nut versus several smaller ones spread over a wider area is
presumably weaker)

* particularly for wire wheels - the wheel center needs to be bigger to
accomodate several studs / bolts rather than a single large spin-on.

I got into the habit of just taking wheels into tire places rather than
the whole car, too, because I found they had a habit of messing up alloy
wheels or over-torquing the nuts and damaging the threads :-( Better to
haul 'em in using another vehicle and put them back on the car at
home...

That's a good idea. I need a second car, or a wife with a car.

It was particularly annoying for any vehicle where they couldn't look up
the torque figures in their book - they had a habit of over-torquing
things with the air wrench "just to be safe" and chewing up the alloys.

Plus of course they can't try and scam you with a bunch of invented
urgent brake and exhaust work if you just show up with wheels... :-)

cheers

Jules

On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:47:55 -0400, mm wrote:
I think I'll stick with my local evil mom & pop tire place where they
don't need to bring the manager out to verify basic service was done
properly.

I"m impressed that they don't just use an air wrench to put them on
tigher than I can get them off. One time I had to drive a half mile
to a tire store, on a flat, because even standing on the lug wrench,
the bolts wouldn't ocme off.

I still have a habit of carrying a bit of hollow steel pipe in my
vehicles that'll slide over the end of the lug wrench - makes life really
easy if stuck at the side of the road in the cold and wet with a flat.

I actually bent a 2' long, 5/8" wide wrench in getting the wheel nuts off
my wife's car (first time I'd pulled them off after she'd bought it)
because they'd been put on so darn tight :-(

The torque extender. An old trick, but still very useful.
Most factory supplied lug wrenches just aren't long enough
to be useful. Hollow steel pipe works better than solid
steel pipe with no hole in the middle.

The four way wrenches, sometimes called star wrenches. Work
nicely for me. I lean my left side against the vehicle. Put
my left foot on the left side of the wrench, push down. Pull
up on the right side, with one or both hands. Seems to
provide some extra torque.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Jules" wrote
in message
news
I still have a habit of carrying a bit of hollow steel pipe
in my
vehicles that'll slide over the end of the lug wrench -
makes life really
easy if stuck at the side of the road in the cold and wet
with a flat.

I actually bent a 2' long, 5/8" wide wrench in getting the
wheel nuts off
my wife's car (first time I'd pulled them off after she'd
bought it)
because they'd been put on so darn tight :-(

On Sep 16, 5:29*am, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:
I've heard of driving on two or three studs, but driving on
one sounds a bit daredevil.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
*www.lds.org
.

"mm" wrote in message

...

I think hubcaps might be a good idea. *I once parked my car
with one
wheel cover off, and it snowed and the snow didn't melt for
weeks,
during which I had shoulder surgery and recuperation, so I
didn't move
the car, and when I finally had a flat tire 6 months later,
4 of the 5
studs on that wheel broke when tried to take off the nuts.

It was Sunday at 6 PM so I had to drive home from Newark
airport with
only one bolt holding the wheel on.

Yeah! The usual practice in such a situation is to steal one nut from
each of the other 3 wheels thus ending with 4 on that wheel.

Harry K

On Sep 15, 2:47*pm, mm wrote:
On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:07:11 -0500, "HeyBub"
wrote:





George wrote:
HeyBub wrote:
mm wrote:
I presume they were banned because wheels were falling off the cars?
I once changed my tire and didn't put it on well I guess, and on a
two hour trip I kept hearing knocking but didn't get out of the car
to look. I thought it was the wheel bearing or something, never
having heard a bad wheel bearing. * When I got where I was going, I
looked, and it was the lug nuts that were loose. *Two of my wheel
holes were oblong and the threads on two or three lug studs were
ruined. *I was able to tighten 4 or 5 nuts, but I had to replace
the studs.**

Heh!

I recently bought a couple of tires at Walmart. I watched the
technician re-mount the tires and asked if he was done. "No," he
said, "I've got to get the manager to re-torque on the lugs and
sign-off on the job. Walmart doesn't want you to drive out of here
and have your nuts fall off." Presently the manager appeared with a
torque wrench.
Click-click-clickety-click, followed by: "Your nuts are good to go!"

I think I'll stick with my local evil mom & pop tire place where they
don't need to bring the manager out to verify basic service was done
properly.

I"m impressed that they don't just use an air wrench to put them on
tigher than I can get them off. *One time I had to drive a half mile
to a tire store, on a flat, because even standing on the lug wrench,
the bolts wouldn't ocme off. * *And girls have even more trouble, when
I think a normal girl more than 5'5" ought to be able to remove a tire
when the lug nuts are tightened by hand, but not if done by an air
wrench.

Does any other chain use a manual torque wrench?



I think it's a wise move to have another employee double-check a safety
item.

Plus, here's a story from just today about how Walmart is involved in the
fight to keep nuts from falling off.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32784197...exual_health/- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Les Schwab outlets (NW company) does it, air wrench and then manual
torque. I have to call them to change a flat as even with a cruciform
lug wrench I can't budge them. Last flat they had even cross
trhreaded one lug nut and the lug had to broken off to get the wheel
off. No apologies from the company when I complained and pointed out
that carrying a spare was pointless if they were going to torque them
so tight.

Harry K

Would removing a lug nut from each of the other wheels help,
if four studs were broken?

It's a lot of work to remove a stud from each of the other
wheels. Last time I removed a stud from a front wheel, I had
to pull the caliper and rotor off. From the back, necessary
to pull the wheel and brake drum. Sounds like he arrived
safely, some how.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"harry k" wrote in message
...
On Sep 16, 5:29 am, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:
I've heard of driving on two or three studs, but driving
on
one sounds a bit daredevil.

the car, and when I finally had a flat tire 6 months
later,
4 of the 5
studs on that wheel broke when tried to take off the nuts.

Yeah! The usual practice in such a situation is to steal
one nut from
each of the other 3 wheels thus ending with 4 on that wheel.

Harry K

on 9/15/2009 9:30 PM (ET) Kate wrote the following:
Tony Hwang wrote:
Steve Barker wrote:
Kate wrote:
I just got a new car and the wheels do not have lug nuts on them.

Do I need to be concerned about the wheels being stolen?

Would you live with it the way it is, or pay $45 for four keyed or
locking lug nuts?

Everyone is always so helpful so I wanted to post here even though
it is off topic.

Many thanks.

Kate

If there's no lug nuts, then what holds the wheels on?

s
Hi,
She meant locking lug nut I guess.
Yes, that is what I meant.

...and so ends the saga of the missing lug nuts.
I bet you learned a lot about lug nut requirements and European
knockoffs. :-)

--

Bill
In Hamptonburgh, NY
In the original Orange County. Est. 1683
To email, remove the double zeroes after @

"Jules" wrote:

I still have a habit of carrying a bit of hollow steel pipe
in my vehicles that'll slide over the end of the lug wrench -

A good idea.

makes life really easy if stuck at the side of the road in the cold and wet
with a flat. I actually bent a 2' long, 5/8" wide wrench in getting the
wheel nuts off my wife's car (first time I'd pulled them off after she'd

I bent the standard 1960's GM lugwrench once, with my bare hands
(while it was attached to a lugnut). It didn't work well after that,
but it was more than made up for by the boost to my ego.

bought it) because they'd been put on so darn tight :-(

On Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:22:34 -0400, "Stormin Mormon" wrote:
The torque extender. An old trick, but still very useful.
Most factory supplied lug wrenches just aren't long enough
to be useful. Hollow steel pipe works better than solid
steel pipe with no hole in the middle.

Actually, solid pipe was invented over 100 years before hollow pipe.
It was intended for water supply but did not work. Four generations of
the Pluterchius family worked on improving it, until the next to
youngest great-grandson, Minimus Plutarchius, invented the hole.

He was apparently an idiot savant, because he was a failure in school
and in other career endeavours. He was dependent on his father for
support, and later on his brothers. His father had earned a modest
income from royalties on the solid pipe, and Minimus might have
received much larger royalties for his pipe improvement, but he was
overly impressed by himself after his invention, and thought he could
also handle the related legal issues. So instead of consulting with
his brothers, he tried to do things on his own, and ended up getting
nothing. He spent the rest of his life depending on the loyalty of his
brothers for income.

The four way wrenches, sometimes called star wrenches. Work
nicely for me. I lean my left side against the vehicle. Put
my left foot on the left side of the wrench, push down. Pull
up on the right side, with one or both hands. Seems to
provide some extra torque.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

On Wed, 16 Sep 2009 07:34:26 -0500, Jules
wrote:

On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:31:58 -0400, mm wrote:
So does Ferrari provide owners with the appropriate torque wrench, right
there with the jack and spare tire?
The Ferrari came with a lead hammer to wallop the nut into place. That was
standard on more expensive sports cars at the time. I had them on my
MG-B in the 1960s.

This is because the cars were made for racing, and this makes pitstops
go faster, right?

Well, once upon a time pretty much everything had a single spin-on nut, I
suppose - presumably a hang-over from the [horse and] cart days of old.
Cars still have a single nut holding the wheel hub onto the axle, of
course, but at some point in time people started separating the wheel/tire
from the hub and using several nuts (or bolts) to hold the two together.

Not sure of the logic of retaining the single spin-on nut for high-end
sports cars - it might have just been a stylistic* thing more than
anything (lose a single spin-on nut and you're in trouble - plus having

Do you remember spinner hubcaps (back when wheel covers were still
called hubcaps)? They looked like a single spin-on nut, but were only
decorative. Underneath was the standard 5-bolt steel wheel.

one big nut versus several smaller ones spread over a wider area is
presumably weaker)

* particularly for wire wheels - the wheel center needs to be bigger to
accomodate several studs / bolts rather than a single large spin-on.

It's definitely very hard to have five lug nuts 3 or 4 inches from the
center when you have wire wheels.

I got into the habit of just taking wheels into tire places rather than
the whole car, too, because I found they had a habit of messing up alloy
wheels or over-torquing the nuts and damaging the threads :-( Better to
haul 'em in using another vehicle and put them back on the car at
home...

That's a good idea. I need a second car, or a wife with a car.

It was particularly annoying for any vehicle where they couldn't look up
the torque figures in their book - they had a habit of over-torquing
things with the air wrench "just to be safe" and chewing up the alloys.

Plus of course they can't try and scam you with a bunch of invented
urgent brake and exhaust work if you just show up with wheels... :-)

Can't they try to sell you the rest of the car?

cheers

Jules

On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:16:46 -0700, Kate wrote:

Tony Hwang wrote:
Kate wrote:
I just got a new car and the wheels do not have lug nuts on them.

Do I need to be concerned about the wheels being stolen?

Would you live with it the way it is, or pay $45 for four keyed or
locking lug nuts?

Everyone is always so helpful so I wanted to post here even though it
is off topic.

Many thanks.

Kate
Hi,
We have 4 cars in the family(one for each of us).
When we get new car we have them installed. Lug nut is easy to
remove with a tool(socket) made for that. Just making it little
inconvenient for would be thief.

I found the lug wrench. I should have taken the time to check the spare
tire area.

Stop kicking yourself. I make 100's of mistakes a year.

On Sep 16, 7:47*am, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:
Would removing a lug nut from each of the other wheels help,
if four studs were broken?

It's a lot of work to remove a stud from each of the other
wheels. Last time I removed a stud from a front wheel, I had
to pull the caliper and rotor off. From the back, necessary
to pull the wheel and brake drum. Sounds like he arrived
safely, some how.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
*www.lds.org
.

"harry k" wrote in message

...
On Sep 16, 5:29 am, "Stormin wrote:
I've heard of driving on two or three studs, but driving
on
one sounds a bit daredevil.

the car, and when I finally had a flat tire 6 months
later,
4 of the 5
studs on that wheel broke when tried to take off the nuts.

Yeah! *The usual practice in such a situation is to steal
one nut from
each of the other 3 wheels thus ending with 4 on that wheel.

Harry K

Ooops my bad, I overlooked the 'broken studs' bit.

Harry K

On Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:31:51 -0400, mm wrote:
Not sure of the logic of retaining the single spin-on nut for high-end
sports cars - it might have just been a stylistic* thing more than
anything (lose a single spin-on nut and you're in trouble - plus having

Do you remember spinner hubcaps (back when wheel covers were still
called hubcaps)? They looked like a single spin-on nut, but were only
decorative. Underneath was the standard 5-bolt steel wheel.

Heh, yes... they always seemed to still look all plastic and horrible,
though. In fact those 'chrome effect' covers always do, and I've never
quite seen the point of dressing up a steel wheel to try and look like an
alloy.

We've got steel hubcaps on our ancient truck - I'm not quite sure
when they vanished in favor of plastic ones, but presumably somewhere
around the early 80s?

Plus of course they can't try and scam you with a bunch of invented
urgent brake and exhaust work if you just show up with wheels... :-)

Can't they try to sell you the rest of the car?

Ha ha! I should try that - take four wheels in and just ask for a quote
for them to "fix my car".

cheers

Jules

Almost as good as "Lady, you've got no oil showing on your
dipstick"
"Well, can't you just squirt some on? I'm in a hurry."

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Smitty Two" wrote in message
news
Candid Camera did a piece in which they put a car with no
engine at the
top of a hill, with a woman in the driver's seat. Gave the
car a push
and she gained enough downhill speed to coast into a service
station at
the bottom, where she said her car just stopped running, and
could they
fix it?

Confronted with: "Lady, you've got no engine!", she played
it all the
way through:

"Well, whatever, do you have a spare you can put in? I'm
late to work
already" or some such, delivered in deadpan ditz.

On Thu, 17 Sep 2009 07:45:46 -0500, Jules
wrote:

On Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:31:51 -0400, mm wrote:
Not sure of the logic of retaining the single spin-on nut for high-end
sports cars - it might have just been a stylistic* thing more than
anything (lose a single spin-on nut and you're in trouble - plus having

Do you remember spinner hubcaps (back when wheel covers were still
called hubcaps)? They looked like a single spin-on nut, but were only
decorative. Underneath was the standard 5-bolt steel wheel.

Heh, yes... they always seemed to still look all plastic and horrible,
though. In fact those 'chrome effect' covers always do, and I've never
quite seen the point of dressing up a steel wheel to try and look like an
alloy.

We've got steel hubcaps on our ancient truck - I'm not quite sure
when they vanished in favor of plastic ones, but presumably somewhere
around the early 80s?

My garden hose reel sprang a leak, and almost all the ones they sell
now are plastic.

BTW, I have one with a narrow bracket and a right angle aluminum pipe
that rotates out from the wall, holding the reel. Do they still sell
these anymore? Looking at Google Products, I see reels but that all
stay parallel to the wall, plus I can't just use the same bracket, and
the same screws in the mortar of the brick wall, that I'm using now.

It's the long L-shaped pipe that sprang the leak. It looks like
soldering aluminum is quite difficult. My next plan is a hose clamp,
with the solid metal part right over the hole. How does that sound?

Plus of course they can't try and scam you with a bunch of invented
urgent brake and exhaust work if you just show up with wheels... :-)

Can't they try to sell you the rest of the car?

Ha ha! I should try that - take four wheels in and just ask for a quote
for them to "fix my car".

That would be funny.

cheers

Jules

On Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:34:40 -0700, Smitty Two
wrote:


Candid Camera did a piece in which they put a car with no engine at the
top of a hill, with a woman in the driver's seat. Gave the car a push
and she gained enough downhill speed to coast into a service station at
the bottom,

That's really funny. Gas is expensive, I assume, and there aren't
many gas stations in Manhattan, so I would wait until I got to
Brooklyn to buy gas, and I managed to run out of gas, on the Manhattan
Bridge, twice, once at the crest and once just before the crest. The
first time I just coasted down the bridge, blew my horn as I crossed
Tillary St. (it was just before the light turned red) and coast into
the SAEEWAY [sic] gasoline station right up to the pump, right there.
Not as funny as Candid Camera. No one even noticed except the traffic
cop at Tillary.

The second time, the guy behind me had to help push me 10 or 30 feet
to just past the crest and then I did the same thing, with the same
results. I haven't run out of gas in 15 years, however.

where she said her car just stopped running, and could they
fix it?

Confronted with: "Lady, you've got no engine!", she played it all the
way through:

"Well, whatever, do you have a spare you can put in? I'm late to work
already" or some such, delivered in deadpan ditz.

Smitty Two wrote:
In article m,
Jules wrote:

On Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:31:51 -0400, mm wrote:
Not sure of the logic of retaining the single spin-on nut for high-end
sports cars - it might have just been a stylistic* thing more than
anything (lose a single spin-on nut and you're in trouble - plus having
Do you remember spinner hubcaps (back when wheel covers were still
called hubcaps)? They looked like a single spin-on nut, but were only
decorative. Underneath was the standard 5-bolt steel wheel.
Heh, yes... they always seemed to still look all plastic and horrible,
though. In fact those 'chrome effect' covers always do, and I've never
quite seen the point of dressing up a steel wheel to try and look like an
alloy.

We've got steel hubcaps on our ancient truck - I'm not quite sure
when they vanished in favor of plastic ones, but presumably somewhere
around the early 80s?

Plus of course they can't try and scam you with a bunch of invented
urgent brake and exhaust work if you just show up with wheels... :-)
Can't they try to sell you the rest of the car?
Ha ha! I should try that - take four wheels in and just ask for a quote
for them to "fix my car".

cheers

Jules

Candid Camera did a piece in which they put a car with no engine at the
top of a hill, with a woman in the driver's seat. Gave the car a push
and she gained enough downhill speed to coast into a service station at
the bottom, where she said her car just stopped running, and could they
fix it?

Confronted with: "Lady, you've got no engine!", she played it all the
way through:

"Well, whatever, do you have a spare you can put in? I'm late to work
already" or some such, delivered in deadpan ditz.

Candid Camera did another one where they fitted a small
foreign car with a huge gas tank. This was back when the
service station attendants put gas in the car for you.
Needless to say, the attendant became quite puzzled after
pumping something like 30 gallons into the diminutive car.

TDD

Let us never say that people in olden days were stupid, or
lacked resourcefulness.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Jules" wrote
in message
news

Actually, solid pipe was invented over 100 years before
hollow pipe.
It was intended for water supply but did not work.

So I hear; they tried weaving big buckets with it, but just
couldn't get
the gaps watertight due to the poor manufacturing tolerances
of the day.

Four generations of
the Pluterchius family worked on improving it, until the
next to
youngest great-grandson, Minimus Plutarchius, invented the
hole.

The material removed when making the hole could of course be
used to make
smaller-diameter solid pipes, intended for supplying smaller
sizes of
water.

The Daring Dufas wrote:

Candid Camera did another one where they fitted a small
foreign car with a huge gas tank. This was back when the
service station attendants put gas in the car for you.
Needless to say, the attendant became quite puzzled after
pumping something like 30 gallons into the diminutive car.

A popular situation in the show was to present preposterous automotive
situations. One such event was a woman asking a service station
attendant about the difference between regular and premium air for her
tires. Who would have thought that it would ever become a real
phenomenon (regular air vs. nitrogen)?

On Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:00:56 -0500, Gordon Shumway
wrote:

On Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:01:38 -0400, mm
wrote:

My garden hose reel sprang a leak, and almost all the ones they sell
now are plastic.

BTW, I have one with a narrow bracket and a right angle aluminum pipe
that rotates out from the wall, holding the reel. Do they still sell
these anymore? Looking at Google Products, I see reels but that all
stay parallel to the wall, plus I can't just use the same bracket, and
the same screws in the mortar of the brick wall, that I'm using now.

It's the long L-shaped pipe that sprang the leak. It looks like
soldering aluminum is quite difficult. My next plan is a hose clamp,
with the solid metal part right over the hole. How does that sound?

What a coincidence. I just bought a new reel and replied to an old
thread "Garden Hose reel that works!"

I bought one from:

http://www.rapidreel.com/Category/1/...and-Reels.aspx

Thanks. They look nice.

But I may just tighten the lugnuts on my current garden hose reel.
Someone said that would fix it.

They ain't cheap but I'll never have to buy another reel the rest of
my life.

Gordon Shumway

Is it good if a vacuum really sucks?

On Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:23:11 -0400, Tony
wrote:

Gordon Shumway wrote:

Is it good if a vacuum really sucks?

Actually a vacuum doesn't suck. The outside air pressure pushes the air
in. Really.


But in what way is that different from any other sucking? So if
sucking exists at all, doesnt' the vacuum cleaner suck?

Doesn't suck mean, "create a partial vacuum so the outside air
pressure pushes air in"?

On Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:29:58 -0400, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

I've heard of driving on two or three studs, but driving on
one sounds a bit daredevil.


Bunch of asshole pranksters removed
ALL the lugnuts from one rear wheel.
The wheel flew off when the car got up to speed.
Fortunatly, no one was hurt.... but there was damage.