oceanobob
Senior Member
On a steel one piece rim for a heavy duty truck, is there a rule of thumb for tightening the lug nut that involves noting 'the turn'?
My truck is a bobtail dump with Accuride one piece steel rims, tires are 10R-22.5.
I remove the wheels using a one inch impact with a 'truck wheel' socket, in a a little bit of a time staggered pattern so the last one is not fully tight by itself.
When reinstalling, after cleaning the threads with a wire brush and the mating surfaces, I tighten the nuts by hand using a 3/4 breaker bar with moderate force so I can feel they are seated evenly. This is done using the cross wheel pattern like a star in a couple steps.
One or two small drops of 30w oil on the threads, no oil at all on the contact point where the nut touches the rim. We have minimal corrosion problems: no snow, little rain.
Other than using a torque wrench as is popular now, what was/is the rule of thumb for the number of turns expressed in flats (eg 2 flats is one third a turn, 3 flats is one half a turn).
The turn of the nut method is used by ironworkers to establish preload on structural steel bolts, but those charts are for flat face nuts with different diameters and thread pitch, so I figured truckers would have an answer for how to do these wheels in a similar fashion when a torque wrench is not available.
Thanks
My truck is a bobtail dump with Accuride one piece steel rims, tires are 10R-22.5.
I remove the wheels using a one inch impact with a 'truck wheel' socket, in a a little bit of a time staggered pattern so the last one is not fully tight by itself.
When reinstalling, after cleaning the threads with a wire brush and the mating surfaces, I tighten the nuts by hand using a 3/4 breaker bar with moderate force so I can feel they are seated evenly. This is done using the cross wheel pattern like a star in a couple steps.
One or two small drops of 30w oil on the threads, no oil at all on the contact point where the nut touches the rim. We have minimal corrosion problems: no snow, little rain.
Other than using a torque wrench as is popular now, what was/is the rule of thumb for the number of turns expressed in flats (eg 2 flats is one third a turn, 3 flats is one half a turn).
The turn of the nut method is used by ironworkers to establish preload on structural steel bolts, but those charts are for flat face nuts with different diameters and thread pitch, so I figured truckers would have an answer for how to do these wheels in a similar fashion when a torque wrench is not available.
Thanks