so waht ya doin today?

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
I glanced at my left front wheel when I got to work this morning and guess what? One wheel nut is missing. I'm certain it was on there yesterday when I got back from the tire shop the second time. Good thing I kept my center caps at home and out of their hands because the loose nut would not have been apparent due to the plastic thread-on nut covers attached to the center cap. I checked the other five and they are tight. Sighh......

Aha! The infamous missing lug nuts! Both my older kids went though stages of wheels falling off their cars. No, really, they fell off. Why? Missing lug nuts. Thankfully the steering would get wonky and they would pull over and thats about when the wheel would depart. This happened on 2 different cars over 6 or 8 months and the sole common factor, out side of being worked on at the same 2 garages, (Waynes and mine!) was parking at my daughters apartment building. Once she moved, it ceased. Meantime we spent a lot of time buying replacement wheels, studs, lugs and paying a couple tow bills. Maddening. I can't imagine someone deliberately loosening lug nuts, but these days you never know.

Got up to find SWMBO goats out of the fence and in the apple trees. Goats and trees under 10 or 12 feet don't mix well. Goats and expensive apple tree seedlings is a deadly combination, eg- if I did what I wanted, my wife would kill me!

Suns out, hoping for a productive day.
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
Sounds a lot better than what I get to enjoy today Paul. Lucky me gets to pressure wash the rear deck and front porch. :( Always great fun. NOT!
 

462

California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
Winelover,
Yep.
The search for an accurate load is but one small aspect of the entire experience of owning a new gun. I even enjoy perusing all the manuals to see what on-hand powders are compatible with the particular cartridge.
 

creosote

Well-Known Member
"I can't imagine someone deliberately loosening lug nuts, but these days you never know."

That happened to our neighbor once.
I was pondering why, then the wife said "it was probably those low life's down the road, just didn't have enough time to get them off" ahhh. It all made sense then.
 

popper

Well-Known Member
Hope you went to the Gas Station or the place on 23rd for BBQ. I always rail at the delivery guys cause that is the only way their boss knows of the problem. Now I checked the mail yesterday, it was all for the next door neighbor! Maybe I'll eventually get mine and it doesn't do any good to leave the delivery guy a note!! Only loose lug nut I had was my kid - there is a specific way to tighten the nuts. Now it's HIS problem with HIS kid.
 

Ian

Notorious member
One wasn't torqued by the techs at Discount. No chance it was mischief after the fact.

I did go back yesterday and give the store manager some constructive feedback, I'm confident it was well accepted and was certainly impressed with his attitude.
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
Removing lug nuts to satisfy an extremely sick humor is nothing new. Been morons doing that since the lug nut was invented. Back in my high school days there were a couple mental midgets removing the front lug nuts of every police car they found parked. That they got caught was no surprise, they went around bragging about it to anyone that would stand still long enough to listen which is about as smart as taking the lug nuts off in the first place. If memory is correct they were charged with attempted murder. Don't remember the final outcome but they were never seen around the school again.
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
The first time I bent the VW factory lug wrench handle trying to get a lug bolt loose, I learned
to torque my own lug nuts/bolts, and usually with the same tool that I will have to use to remove
them in event of a flat. I have had more problems with them being so tight as to be impossible to
loosen with emergency tool than with them being loose.

Today, I am not as focused, but USUALLY take a car home from the tire shop and untorque and
retorque all the wheels. I forget to do it sometimes, but that is my intent.

Ian, it is always nice when you take the time to give some feedback to a service provider about
a problem, and they take it seriously, or at least seem to. Occasionally the really mean it.

I was absolutely flabbergasted and pleased when a service advisor at a Ford dealer, where I did the
extremely rare thing of taking my F150 in for work, listened to my polite expression of disappointment
at finding it impossible to reach anyone other than the phone answering girl on two attempts to check
if my truck was ready. It is a 25 minute one way trip, and left a couple messages, never received anything back.
Finally, the phone answering girl walked out and found a tech and got the info that the truck was ready.
The service advisor overheard me thanking her when paying, came up and asked to see my bill, asked a couple
of questions about me calling and walked off with the bill. ?????
He came back in 5 minutes with the bill, and an apology for poor comms. I looked and he had knocked $250 off
of a $800 bill. :oops::D:D:D
I WILL go back if I need work beyond my skill set or the necessary special tool set. This was replacement of a broken exhaust
manifold stud, and he said they normally replaced all as a set. Had them do both sides. REAL PITA job, and real chance of
trashing a head. Exceptionally poor access to the studs, too. They have special tools and have done it many times.

Bill
 
Last edited:

JWFilips

Well-Known Member
Went shooting this morning then retuning home stored my stuff and started putting new rotors and brake pads on my wife's 2004 Toyota Celica GT! :(
Hate working on low to the ground cars without a pit! Sure feel my age after breaking all those rusted bolts!.. gives a whole new meaning to body hurt!
Well that should last her a good long time. I did tell her, however, she is too old to be driving a car like that ( and a 5 speed standard to boot)
I said I'm having a problem getting in and out of it when she takes me for medical tests where I'm not supposed to drive!
She told me from now on I have to learn how to drive myself ....under the influence of anesthetic:oops:!
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
Work on a car? No way, I prefer to keep people like Ian employed
 

Winelover

North Central Arkansas
The first time I bent the VW factory lug wrench handle trying to get a lug bolt loose, I learned
to torque my own lug nuts/bolts, and usually with the same tool that I will have to use to remove
them in event of a flat. I have had more problems with them being so tight as to be impossible to
loosen with emergency tool than with them being loose.

Been there, done that.

Today, I am not as focused, but USUALLY take a car home from the tire shop and untorque and
retorque all the wheels. I forget to do it sometimes, but that is my intent.

Standard operating procedure. I make it a point to attempt to break them, with on board tool, before I leave the tire shop.
 

Hawk

North Central Texas
I've got an emergency kit in my trunk and another in my wife's car. Mine is a small hardshell case and hers is a hard briefcase.
I have a 1/2 deep well socket that fits the lugs, a 1/2 breaker wrench and a piece of cheater pipe that fits over the breakover bar in each kit. Wimpy little wrenches that come with the cars and even trucks, are useless.
I also have a good set of jumper cables and a good pair of light leather gloves in each kit.
I don't know how many times I have used the jumper cables to help people that were stuck with dead batteries and no idea what to do. Just had their hoods up and looking at the engine with "a deer in the headlights" look.
 

Ian

Notorious member
My first car was a VW, I know all about overtorqued wheel bolts.

I didn't watch the tire techs this time, but typically they run the wheel nuts down with an impact wrench and very light torque stick (50 lbs), then put the vehicle back down on the floor and hand-torque to final with a click-type torque wrench. That's exactly how I learned to do it in school and have done it many thousands of times since, even on diesel rigs requiring 250 lb/ft or more of final torque. I sleep very well at night.
 

CZ93X62

Official forum enigma
The oil change joint where I have our trucks serviced did a tire rotation for me on the F-250 last time we went there. They used the process Ian described, including torque-downs. Techs that "Lean on the impact wrench" give me a case of the a--.
 

Ian

Notorious member
The ones that give me the red-azz are the arrogant fools who think they can "feel" correct torque with a double-hammer thundergun running unknown amounts of shop air pressure and unknown compressor on/off differential settings. I sell a lot of truck wheel studs to the local heavy tire shop.
 

Ian

Notorious member
Spent most of the day building a 4th-order bandpass subwoofer enclosure/center console for the Tahoe. This follows a month of trying different boxes and moving them all over the interior to get the best low-end response without standing waves or bad peaks/notches in the response curve. A 2001 Tahoe soaks up 60-70 hz like a black hole, but firing the port directly into the transmission tunnel couples the whole floor pan and loads only the front and middle seat area, which cancels the standing wave. I'll have to listen to it for a week or two to make sure it's what I want before committing to completing and upholstering it, but first impressions are good.

20190518_205251.jpg
 
F

freebullet

Guest
Come do my dually JW. You'll know fun & sore.;)

Ian that's interesting. I've always preferred the tight sound of sealed enclosures, sometimes adding a whole seperate tuned ported unit in addition. The combo of the 2 eliminates dead spots very well. Looks like your figuring out what your after.

Glad to hear ya made it home Brad.

Today we cleaned 6k+ sqft of carpet & about 50 chairs. Busy & past needing a vacation, inching into run away territory.
 

462

California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
Got bored waiting for the rain so cast 284 RCBS 30-180-SPs, loaded 50 rounds for the .38 Special Uberti 1866 -- 25 jacketed and 25 cast -- and finished a three-story Mickey Spillane/Mike Hammer collection. Shortly, I start a three-story Raymond Chandler collection.