I went about getting the new tires for the rear of my Barth yesterday and once again it points out why people going at this job better know what they are doing!

Some of you may recall when I got the Breakaway and found the leaking rear wheel seal, I found three stripped wheel studs. The main reason was because someone installed the wheels with an impact wrench and really over torqued them. Further inspection showed that the wheel studs were way to short, probably because they were for steel wheels and when aluminum wheels were used, the added thickness of the aluminum reduced the amount of thread engagement.

I replaced all the wheel studs with new ones that were longer and allowed for a full engagement (at least the amount of the stud diameter,) shortly after I had new tires, 8R19.5 installed by a local truck tire shop. I asked them at the time to be careful NOT to over torque the wheel stud/bolts/nuts. I heard them go at it with an impact wrench and ran over to tell them not to impact them so long, was obvious they were just banging on them without regard to the actual torque that was being applied. They reduced the time the impact tool was used and I went away.

Now some 65K miles later and 4 year later, I go about replacing the tires and I can not get the nuts off the wheel, this is with a 3 foot breaker bar and me(at 200 lbs) on the end, with a 10' pipe extension, I finally got 2 of then loose, on the third, the breaker bar gave up and broke at the connection of the bar to the square drive. A quick trip to Harbor Freight got me a 1" impact machine.

All was well on the first wheel, the outer on the passenger's side, then---I ran into trouble! Taking the inner wheel stud nuts off, one of the stud nuts broke, right at the end of the wheel stud!



The others came off but on further inspection, all of the inner stud nuts were stressed and stretched!! It required a die grinder and about an hour of work to free the remaining portion of the stud nut to get the inner wheel off. Of course in the process, I couldn't save the wheel stud and will replace that this AM.

The impact wrench I got is rated at 1800 lb/ft max and it took a good 15 to 30 seconds of application to loosen up the nuts and stud nuts. There was no reason to torque these to the point of stress. Upon further inspection of the fractured stud nut showed that this stud nut had actually fractured long ago about 50% of the way around the stud. A study of the remaining stud nuts showed that they were stretched, trying to thread a bolt all the way in would jam right where the wheel stud ended!

So today, I am replacing all the wheel studs, stud nuts and nuts on both sides! I will once again re-torque them using a new 3' breaker bar, with me at the end to bring them to 600lb/ft, which is the maximum rating for this system!(450-600 lb/ft) I will carry the impact wrench with me now in case I run into trouble while traveling.

Please make sure if you get your tires changed that whoever does this understands that 1' impact tools could ruin your day!

Here is a comparison between XZA 8R19.5 LRF tires and XZE 220R70 LRG tires

Two comments. I am sure you are well aware of the following, but lots of folks may not be.

If the tire shop used way over 1000 ft lbs of torque, check your wheels with a great care. They could have fracture cracks at the studs.

The new tires look allful close together. Just make sure you have enough space so they don't touch each other when you do a hard bump.

Tire spacing is just fine, went thru quite a bit of research before I committed. Over an inch clearance. Sure, smaller rocks and things could lodge between them but they will never touch on a bump. Further, these are load range G

The picture doesn't show the full clearance.

The tire shop had to use well over 1000 lb/ft torque judging by the amount of lever I used just to break free the 2 nuts before the breaker bar broke.

I also should make a bigger point that the actual wheel studs be checked for length, many Barths came with Alcoa aluminum wheels, this is speaking to the 6 bolt applications, not the 8-10 bolt wheel.

I have run across tire shop employees of all flavors, but most are idiots.

All require watching. I have experienced the following on my own vehicles or kids, wives or girl friends:

1. I lost a car and a boat due to loose lug nuts.

2. Had several studs break off from over-torquing.

3. Several more studs and nuts on different vehicles had pulled, galled or stripped threads from same.

4. One aluminum wheel cracked from over torquing

5. One Class C jacked up by the rear bumper, which was very obviously made of sheet metal. You know, the square tube that holds the dump hose.

6. One Jaguar XJS ruined due to jacking on the underside of the (crosswise) spare tire well instead of the diff. The jacking forced the spare upward and bent the rear deck and broke the rear window. No one ever fixed it right, window leaked, trunk lid never fit right nor operated smoothly. The store's insurance co finally bought me another car.

I now specify that an impact wrench not be used for installing nuts, and all final torquing is done by me only.

quote:

The new tires look allful close together. Just make sure you have enough space so they don't touch each other when you do a hard bump.

I'm curious as to why this would be such a problem??? The wheels are traveling at the same speed, so if they touched on a hard bump what damage would occur?

I tend to agree that if they touch on hard impact, also hard to define "hard impact",there would be no tire damage, it is when they are rubbing together constantly during running is when they fail due to abrasion and sidewall temperature increases.

BTW, in my case, the measured dual spacing is 10.375", in my research previously, all the manufacturers recommend a minimum of 10" with a rim width of 6.75" for a 225R70 19.5 tire, The Alcoa wheels are 6.00", I am well within spec.

Air wrenches in tire shops are only good as suppositories in the shop. Did the tire change make any difference in ride or handling?

When I put the XZE on the front, there was a definite handling improvement plus the noise level actually decreased a bit.

Am anxious to get the wheel stud in and take it for a ride but will not know for sure until the next road trip scheduled for the end of this month.

Going to Ketchum Idaho to work a road rally and then onto Portland area to visit family.

I will second the warning to inspect the wheels for cracks. Look very closely at both sides of the wheel. They may just barely show on painted wheels. Also check that the lug nut holes are not out of round or that a crack has not started on the inside of the hole. I just replaced all 6 steel wheels this winter on my bus because of all of the above. No air wrench is used for torquing wheels on any of my rigs anymore.....if necessary i will do it myself. Just bought tires for my jeep 2 weeks ago and had them hand torque them...even then i had to tell them what the torque was, they wanted to set it at 25lbs. higher than what Jeep says. Also 600lbs.? my bus runs between 450-500lbs. of torque. 11R 22.5 tires.

I use Goodyear Wingfoot Tire Centers because they specialize in heavy vehicles and use impact wrenches only to remove the wheels. They have a DOT regimen that replaces all wheel nuts, inspect every stud for stretch and each wheel for cracks. If any fail the inspection they will not release the vehicle but the good news is wheel nuts are included with every tire. They also us the dynamic bead balance bags which are perfect for aluminum wheels rather than wheel weights, which tend to fly off on large wheels. The prices are competitive and they honor Goodyear and other sales coupons. When you drive a big rig let the pros handle the tires - you will be glad you did.

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Originally posted by Shadow man:
Also 600lbs.? my bus runs between 450-500lbs. of torque. 11R 22.5 tires.

Yes, the spec for 6 bolt 19.5 wheels is 450lb/ft to 600 lb/ft. can't comment about wheels for 22.5 wheels.

I wish I had 8 or 10 bolt axles and wheels, I would have a much better choice of wheels, The only aluminum wheels are the Alcoa and only one size, 6.00 inch width. That limits my tires to 225R70 maximum.

The tire shop that messed up this set was a Pro shop truck & bus outlet, yes, they included new stud nuts and nuts, stems and balance, but they used impact wrenches!~!.