bent my factory wrench into a twisted peice of ornamental iron when i couldn't find my 1/2" breaker bar. must have tightened them too much the last time
How you remove wheel lug nuts....?
- Thread starter yuenie
- Start date
Well, I can not resist tellingthe story that happened to me two weeks ago with my '90 525i.
I had taken the car to the garage that does all of the work on the vehicles at the Medical Center, in which I work. They changed the front struts and told me that the brake pads would need to be replaced soon. I thanked them and went home to check the brakes myself - I knew that the pads were less than a year old.
Anyway, start off with a 3/8" drive breaker bar - couldn't budget the lug nuts. Break out my trusty 3 foot piece of 1" diameter steel pipe - NOTHING. Well that except for the fact that I snapped the drive extension that I was using and I broke two 17 mm 6 point sockets.
Went to my 1/2" drive set. I needed the 1/2" breaker bar with a 4" pipe extension - with all 230 pounds of me bouncing on the end of the pipe to break free the lug nuts. Lets see, call it 5 foot lever times 230 pounds - gee that's over 1000 ft-lbs of torque.
I go back to the mechanic with my broken sockets and drive and start bitching. Their reply "We didn't want the wheels to fall off!". I alway watched the tire changer when I had my wheels rotated or new tires installed and would stop them when the impact gun started to jump on the clutch. I wasn't around this time and fate got me!
I had taken the car to the garage that does all of the work on the vehicles at the Medical Center, in which I work. They changed the front struts and told me that the brake pads would need to be replaced soon. I thanked them and went home to check the brakes myself - I knew that the pads were less than a year old.
Anyway, start off with a 3/8" drive breaker bar - couldn't budget the lug nuts. Break out my trusty 3 foot piece of 1" diameter steel pipe - NOTHING. Well that except for the fact that I snapped the drive extension that I was using and I broke two 17 mm 6 point sockets.
Went to my 1/2" drive set. I needed the 1/2" breaker bar with a 4" pipe extension - with all 230 pounds of me bouncing on the end of the pipe to break free the lug nuts. Lets see, call it 5 foot lever times 230 pounds - gee that's over 1000 ft-lbs of torque.
I go back to the mechanic with my broken sockets and drive and start bitching. Their reply "We didn't want the wheels to fall off!". I alway watched the tire changer when I had my wheels rotated or new tires installed and would stop them when the impact gun started to jump on the clutch. I wasn't around this time and fate got me!
Funny that this came up, I bought a new disco recently and wanted to check the brakes and other things and I went to remove the wheels and every single nut was as if it was too big for the land rover wrench, I had to pound the wrench onto EVERY one. So I replaced all of the nuts with some old ones off of my d90 and they fit like a glove in the wrench.
yuenie said:
he is serious, your buddy means well and perhaps knows you better than me
what that means dude, is,
dont be an idiot and squeeze trigger hard when you grab the impact is what they mean,
use your brain, come on gentle and slow, or get a gun that has some element of trigger control if yours doesnt.
if youre really not sure if youre an idiot, go get the torque rods to protect the lugs from the bigger lug(you?) as the case case may be. they make these for eggsactly this reason.
my gun has a 4 setting knob, to open or constrict air flow/torque
I'm dumb enough to know when to use said knob on my lugz, sure you can be too! LOL
uh, there is a difference between an impact driver, and an impact gun.
good luck using an impact driver to get a lug nut loose, it would take forever and a day...
good luck using an impact driver to get a lug nut loose, it would take forever and a day...