Oops: Learned a lesson about torquing lug bolts

[smithma7 at gmail.com (Mike Smith)]

I think he might have you beat on length, Cathy.

On 6/2/05, GGehrke <ggehrke@gmail.com> wrote:
> So I'll come right out and say that as best I can figure, everything
> that I'm about to say is completely my own fault.
> 
> I finished putting a new brake MC, stainless lines, wheel cylinders,
> pads and shoes on my '80 last friday.  Brian and I determined that my
> drivers side front caliper was bad (piston leaking, not seated
> properly, something like that) so I was looking for a new one.
> I spent the weekend with my girlfriend in Washington, DC and tuesday
> morning left on my way back home to KY.  I noticed the car shook more
> than usual over the extremely rough city streets, but kept hoping it
> was just the streets, because I knew I had a wheel bearing on the
> passenger side front on its way out.  It started to wobble worse and
> steering was sloppy so I pulled over and checked the bad wheel to see
> if the it moved too much, which it didn't.  I checked the driver side
> briefly too just to be sure.
> Couple more miles down the road the car starts shaking pretty
> violently so I slow down and decide to pull off at the next exit
> (under a mile) to give it a thorough check when all of the sudden I
> feel the steering wheel jerk, the car slams to the ground, and to my
> horror the passenger side wheel goes rocketing down the freeway,
> keeping up the 65mph I was doing.  I navigated off to the side of the
> road safely, but noticed that another car pulled off just ahead of me.
>  Turns out the wheel had actually bounced off him (he was just pulling
> up to try to tell me he saw it shaking) but only left a small rubber
> scuff on the side (he was in a newer golf, by chance).  He gave me a
> lift to the next exit where I called a tow truck.  They took me to a
> shop, where I determined that the lug bolts must have come completely
> loose and just let go.  One of the holes in the hub was buggered where
> the bolt had stripped and left about 3 turns of thread in the hub.  I
> also found my brake pads were bent on that side, but there wasn't any
> other apparent suspension damage or anything.  After about 5 hours of
> waiting I convinced the shop that the hub just needed to be tapped to
> clean out the threads, instead of installing a new one, but they
> couldn't get a replacement caliper until the next day.  Fortunately
> the Naval Academy has a program where they network families across the
> country who we can call if we get into this sort of bind, so a nearby
> family came and picked me up for the night.  Went back the next day
> and the car was better than before.  The brakes were properly flushed
> and bled with a new caliper (passenger side could still use
> replacement, but I'll wait on that) and really feel pretty great.
> Unfortunately, when all was said and done it was about a $400 bill for
> work that I could have done myself for a fraction of the cost, but I
> was stuck in the middle of nowhere with no other options.  ($400+300
> for other brake supplies = maxed out visa = unhappy grant)
> I actually never even found the wheel (riding now on one of the stock
> wheels that came with the car, which I kept as a spare) even though I
> looked for it all up and down the highway for over 2 hours, so that's
> another costly replacement.  I never saw the lugs either so I can't be
> sure what happened, but best I can figure I simply forgot to tighten
> them properly.  I tightened them with the car in the air, and then put
> it down on the ground and tightened them all the way. Brian could
> attest to seeing me do this.  I just used a small ratchet, though,
> because my stock lug wrench won't fit into the holes of my new wheels,
> so I guess it wasn't enough and with a known bad wheel bearing (which
> is holding up just fine) I didn't even think about it.
> After getting it all straightened out I made it home to Kentucky
> safely (though a solid day late and moderately shaken) where I'll
> spend a day before heading up to cincy tomorrow.  I was really
> thinking about scrapping cincy and staying in washington the next few
> days to save money, but decided I wasn't going to miss this for
> anything (which should say something to anyone else out there who's
> wavering).  Before I go, though, I'm going to torque the snot out of
> those lug bolts and carry an even better assortment of tools.  Lesson
> learned, as they say, the hard way.
> 
> -Grant-
> 
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-- 
Mike
'86 red 16v (Red 5)
"The snozberries taste like snozberries!"
"It's a trick. Get an axe."