Anyone else wash their lugnuts?

[Virtus_Probi]

The lugs for my summer wheels (OEM) pick up a lot of black crud while those for the aftermarket Moda wheels I bought for my winter tires stay quite clean...not sure if there is a difference in materials involved or it's just the heat the summer wheels experience.
I meant to clean off the summer lugs over the winter and completely forgot about it until I was about to put the tires on yesterday. Guess I will have to figure out a good way to clean them on the car without messing up the wheels.
BTW, I would bet good money that New England will experience a major snowstorm sometime soon since I have switched my tires. I saw it was supposed to be quite warm in the middle of the week and don't like the way my R2 SUVs feel even when it gets close to 50, but looks like we might have some nasty weather on Friday. My summer tires were looking a bit ragged, too, as my aggressive cornering has left the outer shoulder blocks looking pretty bare all around.

 

[Silverado12]

Originally Posted By: Linctex
Originally Posted By: BHopkins

Everyone I knew when I was working in Aerospace,... would only suggest in humor that they have a "calibrated arm",


If you have every worked in any aviation MRO, you KNOW full well there are places where a torque wrench simply doesn't fit into. I must have torqued more than 1,000 fasteners in my years, and I think my "calibrated wrist/arm" is actually pretty close.

Close enough that my lug nuts don't fall off, anyway....
and I can still get 'em loose on the side of the road to change a flat,
which is more than many others can attain to.


LOL I was an aircraft mechanic in the service and rarely used a torque wrench or service manual. You really do get a feel for tightening stuff and have been doing it for 40 years now.

 

[oil_film_movies]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
Anyone else wash their lugnuts?
Kind of a personal question, isn't it?

Anyway, ya shouldn't use anything oily or slippery on it after washing off the road salts. Maybe a little Loctite 242 to add some friction would be good.

 

[Shannow]

Best thread in forever.

People who develop a "feel", I think are more developing an "eye" for what looks like about right.

All the stuff on the turbines is angle of rotation, like just about every automated process is...it's not influenced by a bit of grit hear and there, or the specific "u" of the antisieze.

e.g. 200lbft (that's finger tight on the turbines), and then 15-90 degrees depending on pitch and length.

Edit...for distorted flanges (one of the Wang units I could put a 6mm drill bit mid casing untensioned), pull them ALL down to get the distortion out, then back them off and tighten them properly one at a tims...that's what I do with wheels. Pull them all up, then back each one off and tighten it "properly". They end up much more even.

 

[Astro14]

I can see why folks wash the lugnuts.

I live in a salt environment too (I'm about 100 yards from the water, which is brackish, and we get coastal flooding often). So, lugnuts, or wheel bolts, get wiped down every time they come off the car. Usually with a shot of oil, but if there is corrosion on external threads, a wire brush/wheel to clean them up.

But I've always understood that the torque values are for clean/dry threads, so here is my method:

A shot of pure zinc primer on the internal and external threads of the wheel bolts or lugnuts/studs. The primer dries in seconds, and the result is a dry barrier of zinc on the steel surfaces.

I've had zero issues with rust, or stuck bolts/lugs, since adopting this method. Torque values stay the same (and after 40+ years of turning wrenches, I do have a good feel, but I still use a torque wrench, in fact, I have one that I use just for lugs/bolts) and I have kept the corrosion from occurring. Rust-Oleum makes the product, available at Lowe's, Home Depot, etc.

Now, on the Mercedes, I bought Titanium wheel bolts. The zinc primer method was working to keep the wheel bolts from seizing or rusting on the threads, but the zinc coating on the heads of the bolts was only good for a year or two here by the ocean, and I got tired of buying and/or painting the wheel bolts all the time. The Titanium bolts are like little jewels in the shiny aluminum wheels of the car, instead of dull, partly rusty bolt heads...and they were about $300 for a set, so they weren't terribly expensive.

 

[thescreensavers]

Originally Posted By: SLO_Town


Lubing the threads are one thing, but lubing the cone of an aluminum wheel is a huge NO-NO. Not only will you significantly over torque things, the lugs will not hold torque.

I'm not throwing stones, I'm just offering some friendly advice.



FYI My OEM wheels from GM came with lube on the center cone of my aluminum wheel.

 

[jjjxlr8]

Does anyone use the McGard Spline drive lug nuts with the bearing type cone? The cone portion that touches the wheel is separate from the rest of the lug nut so that it doesn't turn against the wheel, preventing galling of the wheel. These are only aluminum wheels. Very nice, high quality lug nuts.

 

[Virtus_Probi]

Originally Posted By: Astro14
I can see why folks wash the lugnuts.

I live in a salt environment too (I'm about 100 yards from the water, which is brackish, and we get coastal flooding often). So, lugnuts, or wheel bolts, get wiped down every time they come off the car. Usually with a shot of oil, but if there is corrosion on external threads, a wire brush/wheel to clean them up.

But I've always understood that the torque values are for clean/dry threads, so here is my method:

A shot of pure zinc primer on the internal and external threads of the wheel bolts or lugnuts/studs. The primer dries in seconds, and the result is a dry barrier of zinc on the steel surfaces.

I've had zero issues with rust, or stuck bolts/lugs, since adopting this method. Torque values stay the same (and after 40+ years of turning wrenches, I do have a good feel, but I still use a torque wrench, in fact, I have one that I use just for lugs/bolts) and I have kept the corrosion from occurring. Rust-Oleum makes the product, available at Lowe's, Home Depot, etc.

Now, on the Mercedes, I bought Titanium wheel bolts. The zinc primer method was working to keep the wheel bolts from seizing or rusting on the threads, but the zinc coating on the heads of the bolts was only good for a year or two here by the ocean, and I got tired of buying and/or painting the wheel bolts all the time. The Titanium bolts are like little jewels in the shiny aluminum wheels of the car, instead of dull, partly rusty bolt heads...and they were about $300 for a set, so they weren't terribly expensive.


That zinc primer sounds really interesting. I noticed small areas of corrosion on the threads of some of the lugs and studs when I was swapping my tires last weekend, but just wire brushed the studs as best I could and finished the job. I think using the zinc primer next time sounds like a better course of action, thanks for mentioning it.

I actually have one (I think decent) torque wrench I basically only use for wheels as well as another (definitely crummy) that only gets used for drain plugs. The latter was a WM special that stopped clicking at higher torque values and became useless for wheel work, but I was having good luck with it at the lower torque used for an oil change and just leave it sitting in the garage with the socket for my drain plug in it. I kept getting some level of dripping when I tightened the drain plug by feel and finally used the old torque wrench at something like 26 lb-ft.