How many torque their 22.5 inch tires.

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I put 200k on my last work truck with a perm. equipment mounted maxed out GWV,  and being a boom truck it could be legally over-weight on the 14k steer axle, ..  (it's true). 

It had 10 ea.  22" alum. wheels on it,  being driven hard on and off road,  it used to eat tires.

I've had many tires changed on job sites and the side of the road by many different independent tire trucks.  Every one of them put a 250 ft. lb. air-gun in the lugs and held the trigger down until the gun stopped ............ torque ?   

In over 4 decades of driving these work trucks,  I never checked them,  I never re-torqued them,  and I've never had a wheel or lug problem.

I guess I was just lucky.    :)
 
^^To each their own.  I have never been a fan of relying on luck or hope as a plan yet I know many who do, at least until they have an issue.

Gary asked for opinions or asked who torques their wheels and I gave him my opinion.

Mike
 
zmotorsports said:
In my opinion I would have them re-torqued, but have them back them off slightly then bring up to spec.  The biggest issue I see and is one of my pet-peeves at tire shops is when the guy rattles on the lug nut with his impact and THEN grabs a torque wrench and runs around the pattern and they all get the "click" from the torque wrench. ::)  They should be run on evenly and then brought up to the proper torque evenly.  BY merely rattling on with an impact and then kissing them with the torque wrench I guarantee you that they are all over-torqued and the torque wrench is merely telling them that they are at LEAST at the preset of the torque wrench.

Mike

I'm going to err on the side of caution and have them re-torqued.  I may have missed it, but I don't recall seeing anyone with a torque wrench after the lugs were put on.  I've used this guy for the past 7 years and get good prices but, they're not really set up for large vehicles. 

Thanks everyones for your input.  Tires out the door $1,600.  Sumitomo 245 75R 22.5.  I've got room in the budget for a re-torque.  ;)
 
If you go into a real truck tire shop,  go in the back and ask some of the actual tire jockies if they use a torque wrench to tighten the lug nuts ....  they will likely burst out in laughter.  but I'm sure the service writer up front will be more than happy to take your money.

to loosen all six wheels and remove two of them and put a torque wrench on 48 to 60 different nuts,  how long could it take at $90-$100 per hour ?

IMO..loosening of the lug nuts has never been a problem....and nobody ever re-torques them.    But if it makes you sleep better, then go have it done.  :)




 
 
TonyDtorch said:
Over 40 years and many thousands of miles I drove large trucks and had hundreds of tires changed.... I never re-torqued a single lug nut on an aluminum or steel wheel,  and I've never found or heard of a loose lug nut.

IMO...That printed instruction that says you must re-torque the lug nuts every 100 miles is just a bunch of corporate attorney ramblings trying to avoid responsibilities.

TonyDtorch
Every 100 miles??

There's sign in the shop where I buy tires says they will re-torque the lug nuts after the first 100 miles.
When I returned my coach to the shop they found that 6 of the 40 lug nuts needed to be re-tightended
 
I have supervised the Installation of thousands, no tens of thousands of 22 5 tires in the 36 years of truck maintenance.  Ensure the mating surfaces are clean and free of rust, torque in proper sequence, and they will be fine over 100,000 miles.
 
zmotorsports said:
In my opinion I would have them re-torqued, but have them back them off slightly then bring up to spec.  The biggest issue I see and is one of my pet-peeves at tire shops is when the guy rattles on the lug nut with his impact and THEN grabs a torque wrench and runs around the pattern and they all get the "click" from the torque wrench. ::)  They should be run on evenly and then brought up to the proper torque evenly.  BY merely rattling on with an impact and then kissing them with the torque wrench I guarantee you that they are all over-torqued and the torque wrench is merely telling them that they are at LEAST at the preset of the torque wrench.
Mike

I was a victim of this with my Jeep. I often rotate my own Jeep tires every 5-6K miles while on the road. Occasionally I use a shop if I am near one.  I had purchased a set of Cooper Tires from Les Schawb, and they offer free rotations as a perk.  I was in WA state and went to a Schawb for a quick rotation, which they did.  5K miles later I was home in the garage and tried to get the wheels off to do another rotation myself.

About half of the lugs were on so tight they wouldn't budge. And that was using a star wrench, a block of wood and my 200# plus frame bouncing on the end.  I had to go to a tire shop in town to get them removed.  The result was that I wound up needing about 6 of the studs and all the lug nuts replaced because the tire jockey stretched the studs, damaging them. 

Now I refuse to let any tire jockey put the lugs on with an impact wrench.  All of them will say "our impact wrenches are set to 80# and we use a torque wrench to tighten them".  But like Mike says, you never know how tight an impact wrench will put the lugs on, and the torque wrench just tells you what the minimum torque is. 

My motorhome wheels are not as much of a concern. They put them on with a 1" impact at 450# pounds+ and the studs are much more robust than those on a passenger car. I also have not had my MH wheels retorqued.
 
Again, to each there own but I have wrenched for 3 decades and now manage a shop that maintains 46 OTR tractors, 235 box trailers and 25 dollies and we torque our wheels on, period.  But that is just the way I/we do things and I am sure not everyone is that regimented.

It kills me what people call their "professional" shops that support their own theories yet when something does NOT go right their same "professional" shop is the first one to blame because they have incompetent mechanics. ::)  Bottom line is it's your money and your decision, if you think having the wheels torqued on properly is a waste of money then by all means don't bother with it. 

We can go back and forth all day long and we will never convince the other that they are wrong, the OP merely asked a question and I gave my opinion and supplied the facts and details on how I do it, nothing more.

My theory is to maintain a high quality of workmanship, anything else is purely unacceptable.

Mike
 
To prove that I actually walk the walk and not talk the talk.

This is my Proto 600 ft/lb torque wrench that gets used anytime I pull a wheel on my coach or anyone's that I work on.

Mike
 

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Torquing them properly the first time is wise, but IF that is done, I see little reason to re-torque later.  In my opinion, it's basically insurance against a sloppy job the first time.

The problem in all of this is that tire shops rarely do anything other than beat the nuts with a big air-wrench that has a torque setting. From what I see, they use a one size fits all torque setting based on wheel diameter, where "size" is either "big" (trucks, 19.5"-24.0") or "small" (car tires, less than 19.5"). Maybe they test it with a torque wrench after, as Zmotorsports described.  In most cases the lugs are going to be way over-torqued (unless the jockey forgot top reset the air wrench first). Those "tire professionals" mostly aren't very professional about anything except getting the job out the door quickly and with least effort.
 
zmotorsports said:
To prove that I actually walk the walk and not talk the talk.

This is my Proto 600 ft/lb torque wrench that gets used anytime I pull a wheel on my coach or anyone's that I work on.

Mike
Mike,  do you pull the outside wheel off when you re-torque the the lugs on the inside wheel ?
 
TonyDtorch said:
Mike,  do you pull the outside wheel off when you re-torque the the lugs on the inside wheel ?

No need.  My wheels (as with most on RV's) are a unimount system not the Stud-Mounted or Stud-Piloted style that requires an inner nut and an outer nut.

For the record Gary's title stated "How many torque their 22.5 in tires (I know he actually meant wheels)".  Then in the body of the message he mentioned "re-torqueing".  This is two totally different situations and to avoid any confusion, I/we "torque" ALL of our wheels on our rigs any time they are removed and reinstalled.  The only time we "re-torque" a wheel setup is if we have installed new drums and/or new wheels OR if we had to have one of our tractors or trailers serviced at another shop such as an out of town issue.

I just wanted to clarify initial torque vs. re-torque.

Mike
 
but according to the instructions you are supposed to use a torque wrench to tighten the lugs,  and you are supposed to check the tightening of the lugs after 100 miles,  (with a T/W ?)  ...so,  I think there is a re-torque required.

I looked at that Unimount set up.  Correct me if I'm wrong.. but If the lug nuts ever come loose on the rear...you lose both wheels...?
I think that is very different than the semi-truck wheels I used to have.  I think I'd Loctight those and check them every time I stopped for fuel.

Has anyone ever seen a roadside tire truck use a torque wrench ? 
 
TonyDtorch said:
but according to the instructions you are supposed to use a torque wrench to tighten the lugs,  and you are supposed to check the tightening of the lugs after 100 miles,  (with a T/W ?)  ...so,  I think there is a re-torque required.

I looked at that Unimount set up.  Correct me if I'm wrong.. but If the lugs ever come loose on the rear...you lose both wheels...?
I think that that is very different than the semi-truck wheels I used to have.  I think I'd Loctight those and check those every time I stopped for fuel.

Has anyone ever seen a roadside tire truck use a torque wrench ?

From my understanding and what I have done personally is re-check the wheel stud torque after a couple hundred miles on new wheels or drums only.  This is because the metal and wheel have not been heat cycled yet and therefore are still considered "green" castings and can change after some heat cycles.  On used wheels and/or drums I have not seen where a re-torque is necessary nor stated in any of our FSM's.

That being said, I have never seen an RV with a Stud-Piloted drive axle setup, they have all been Unimount and if torqued properly should not have any issues.  Yes you are correct, on a Unimount setup if the lug nuts come loose both wheels are in fact affected.  Basically a bolt is a spring anyways, as the bolt it torqued (tensioned) it is preloaded and therefore stretched somewhat.  This resistance to stretch is what holds assemblies, weldments, etc together.  If the Unimount setup is fastened properly it is still the actual wheel stud that is taking the drivetrains applied driven torque of the wheel same as the Stud-Piloted setup.  The weight itself is not actually sitting on the studs for the most part as they are centered on the hub which is supporting the weight by tapered bearings.

No I have not seen a roadside tire repair use a torque-wrench.  That doesn't mean it is done properly, it just means that I doubt they do it.  That being said, I mentioned above that in the event we have a tire/wheel issue on an out of town trip we pull that tractor or trailer into the shop upon it pulling back into the yard and torque the wheels on ourselves for verification.

Mike
 
a roadside repair of that Unimount setup is a little more scary than the old Stud/pilot set up.

If by chance one of those inner wheels was just a little tiny bit unseated,    about 200 miles later you will be watching a set of aluminum wheels pass you on the freeway.

I honestly don't think I'd let any tire truck ever change one of them.
 
TonyDtorch said:
I honestly don't think I'd let any tire truck ever change one of them.

Me either but there are a lot of them that get changed on the side of the road.  Most RV'ers don't have the means to do their own so I understand the concern.  My goal is to just give fellow RV'ers the tools and knowledge to at least request the proper installation when they take their coaches in for repairs.  There are still good and honorable shops out there although they are getting harder and harder to find.

This also supports my reasoning that no one touches my rig but me.

Mike
 
Unfortunately,  there may be a lot of RVers that are not physically capable of a roadside tire repair.

IMO....that's a scary setup.  Is there any history of problems ?
 
:)) :))Great topic Guys...with lively and very robust opinions all around. Special kudos to Mike  Zmotorsports...with very professional info. Great bunch of fellows on this forom!!!!
 
TonyDtorch said:
Unfortunately,  there may be a lot of RVers that are not physically capable of a roadside tire repair.

IMO....that's a scary setup.  Is there any history of problems ?

None that we have had nor are aware of.

To be honest, I don't consider it as scary of a situation due to the scenario I mentioned above with the bolt being in tension.  IF the fasteners are tightened to spec then the bolt is tensioned enough to keep the nut tight and therefore very low probability that the nut will back off.  We/I have never used any Loctite or similar on wheel studs and never had an issue nor have I really heard of one.

That being said, you are correct that IF the wheel was placed on the drum/hub and there was foreign debris on the mounting surface this can and will present a potential problem because this will prevent the lugnut/stud from being properly tensioned, even with a torque wrench. 

Even in some of the worst environments I have seen mechanics/tire busters at least run a hand over the mounting surface of the wheel as well as the hub to ensure the surface is free from debris.

Mike
 
TonyDtorch said:
Unfortunately,  there may be a lot of RVers that are not physically capable of a roadside tire repair.

IMO....that's a scary setup.  Is there any history of problems ?

Also, a road side repair is a problem even for myself who has the tools, etc to do the job properly at home.  If I were to have an issue and need a roadside tire repair I would be at the same mercy as every other RV'er.  The biggest difference is I would make sure to back off and properly torque the wheel at my first opportunity even after communicating my desire to have the work done properly to the mechanic on the road call.

Like I mentioned above discussions like this are to inform fellow RV'ers that there is a proper method to change a tire/wheel (or any other repair for that matter), whether on the side of the road or in a shop.  Arming everyone with this knowledge is how we hold shops and mechanics to the standard we expect when we are paying for these repairs.

Mike
 

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