Jacking Tips for tire removal

[Arberg0]

From: cooneytunes  (Original Message) Sent: 4/23/2005 1:03 AM

I just uploaded some photo's of jacking the rear of a rig. This is for some of you first timers who have not yet jacked up your rig....We all learn as we go...It is not like jacking up the family Station Wagon......the mistakes I made first was, mine sat from Nov to April and sunk in the soft grass all the way to the rims....the front axel was about 2 inches from the ground....Had to jack it up put blocks in the holes and let rig down on blocks so I could drive it out...What a job....now I know not to park it on the grass for the winter.
Have a concrete slab going in for that purpose... Once I got it moved to more solid ground I took pictures of the jacking of the rear wheels....Safety is # 1 priority when doing this, you don't want to have it fall on you, actually you don't want to have it fall at all. It would be very very difficult to re-jack a rig once the tires are off if it fell off the jack, so use blocks, stands etc. Above all else safety is as important as getting the job done. Start on as solid and as level ground as possible, if your on asphalt or concrete use wood blocks & boards...To break the lugs loose takes a lot of force, use penitrating oil (lots of it) if it's been sitting awhile, You may have to spray several times and let sit overnight, and you may even have to use some heat to help it free up....remember... the old Dodges are left handed threads on the drivers side....The process could take you, from getting all the stuff you need to jack it up, too finally getting the duals off one side... an hour per side, or more using one jack. You only need to lift it just so the wheel clears the ground...leave the wheels on the ground when trying to break the lugs free. Start jacking once all the lugs are loose...You'll have to loosen the outer wheel, jack it up, remove it and let it down again so you can break loose the inner wheel lug.   Like I said, It's not the family station wagon and probably the hardest thing you'll ever do working on these rigs...
Timmy
 


From: ClydesdaleKevin Sent: 4/23/2005 1:56 AM
Do you know if its OK to put an anti-seize compound on the lugs when you reassemble it, or would this be unsafe?

Thanks!

Kev and Patti Smith



From: denison Sent: 4/23/2005 7:32 AM
Lubing the threads or putting antisieze on doesnt seem to be done on commercial trucks, nor on automobile wheels either - none that I have ever worked on. I know that I dont want any lubricant on the conical holding surface, between the nuts and the wheel mounting holes.
I have had to clean rust off of some of mine that were stiff. I put a wet solution of the abrasive comet cleaner on the threads and work the nuts back and forth, then rinse and repeat, till the nuts all run on and off by hand, or with the wheel wrench just held lightly in one hand. I dont put them back together till the threads are fully dry. I have put a small amount of wd-40 onto the exposed threads - to slow down the corrosion.





From: cooneytunes Sent: 4/24/2005 12:17 AM
I'll agree with Denison...I don't know any road vehicle that would you anti-seize on the threads...We do use it on the lug threads of our large farm tractors, but they're not going down the road at 60 mph. And we only use a little bit, like Denison said, you don't want any thing between, the lug and the rim except a clean dry surface...We also use WD 40 after the lugs are tight...Important Note: Remember after putting the wheels back on, no matter how tight you think you may have your lugs, check em' again in the first 40 to 50 miles of travel, to make sure they're still that way.
Timmy
Timmy

   

From: Derrek Sent: 4/24/2005 10:39 AM
I personally would be much more concerned about having tire problems and not being able to get the lugs loose, rather than using a lubricant such as never-seize, and having a wheel come loose. Although, most manufacturers do not recommend using a lubricant on lug nuts.

Keeping in mind that a tire and wheel assembly probably weighs in the 80-100 lbs range.... If a wheel were to come loose, the vibration caused by the loose wheel would be tremendous, long before the lugs were loose enough for the wheel to come off.

Shortly after I purchased my motor home, I went around to making sure that I could get all of the lug nuts loose. I used a cheater bar to extent the already long lug wrench handle, and still couldn't get the rear lug nuts to break loose. This was after coating them repeatedly with penetrating oil, over a period of several days. I ended up heating the nuts with a torch to break them loose. If  I had experienced a blowout, and been sitting along side of the road, I would have been stranded, unable to change the tire.....



From: denison Sent: 4/24/2005 8:18 PM
When I first got mine I had to use a torch on one or two of the nuts also. Since then I never let them go for more than 2 years without undoing them and retorquing. 

   

From: SeaRaySRV16O Sent: 5/2/2005 10:16 PM
I am kind of on the fence with the lubing the lug nuts thing. While I know big trucks(18-wheelers) don't use any lube, that's not an issue since when I drove 'em we had garage people with 400 psi air wrenches to get 'em off with.

I have always lubed the threads and mating surfaces of the lug nut & wheel on my Escort and other cars to let me get the nuts off easily later. This is NOT recommended on the lug nuts of any wheel with disk brakes, however, because some think the increased torque a lubricated thread provides may slightly deform the rotor and cause vibration when applying the brakes. I am not 100% convinced of that logic either.

I use a heat resistant lube(Krytox) when I lube the lugnut threads of wheels with drum brakes. I fail to understand how that may cause any loosening when I am sure they are torqued to around 150 ft/lbs on my auto. I don't lube wheels with disk brakes at all for the above stated reason. In the case of drum brakes, IMO, the added torque the lubrication provides to tightening, will more than compensate for any tendency for the nuts to loosen
.
In the case of these old Dodge lugnuts, I am sure I am putting around 250 ft/lbs or more when I put a 4' extension on the lug wrench handle.

BTW, I did have a wheel loosen up once on my Suburban a few days after a local tire shop put on new tires. The problem was VERY evident as soon as the lug nuts were minimally loose. Any cornering or turning was accompanied by a noticeable "clicking" or "clunking" noise. It is something that will catch your attention immediately. The nuts had not loosened much past snug at all to produce the sound.