Was cruising a mustang board and read where someone was having rear end noise. Turned out that ALL the U Bolts were loose and the axle was rotating slightly on shifts. WELL... A few days ago I posted with some strange noises coming fromg from my new PowerTrak rear. A few suggestions later and I chalked it up to spring-bind since it would only happen when I was on it. Since taking the slapper bars off and no CalTracs (yet) it made sense. Well, I was under it today fiddling with the fulel filter and guess what? It happened to me! All 8 nuts were hand tight after my install two weeks ago! Opps, check, double check the recheck in 20 miles or so.....Scotty
A couple of weeks ago, our maintenance guy at work had brake work done on one of his Cherokees at Meineke. His wife and him were setting out to do some X-mas shopping when the right front wheel fell off near the mall doing about $2800 damage to the 4x4. They forgot to tighten up the lug nuts. Fortunately, nobody was hurt except the Jeep. In November, one of our F-450 rigs at work was on the way to the hospital with a patient when the left real duals came off. The lugs were loose there also. Lessons learned, guys!!
been there I remember when I was about 9 or 10 yrs old my Dad took his 62 galaxie to get tires and as we were on our way home he decided to "try em out" at 110 miles per hr the drivers wheel foled up in the wheel well. He kept it under contol but man was he pissed. He took us home before he went to the station but I can imagine the cussing that guy got. Guess Im lucky to be here HUH? Later Tim "my comet gt"
I was driving my ramcharger home after having new tires put on and on the way home the truck started to shake real bad, thought I might have gotten a tire with a broken belt, pulled over just in time to see the last lug nut come loose.... the tire stayed on the truck, but needless to say my aluminum rim was scrap.... however they did buy me a need rim, but it could happen to anyone to forget to torque the lugs
i once had a shop install some new spring on a 83 honda accord, as i was driving home i took a corner approx 5mph and the car just dropped, turned out they didn't tighten a lower shock bolt or something and the whole spring/control arms/tires ripped itself away from the axle and screwed up the whole car... i didn't care though, i only paid 100 bux for it.
my first vehicle back in 1996 was a 68 chevy panel truck, i was driving to work one day and started hearing a clicking coming from the right front tire, after about a mile i noticed the sound was getting louder and louder and i could feel it in the steering wheel i figured i should pull over and investigate, boy was i shocked when i saw 4 of the 6 lug nut studs broke off boy that could have been bad!! i miss that truck, only chevy i wouldn't mind having again. maybe its just the first car nostalgia though.. 307v8, 3-speed on the column, no ps, no pb, hardwood floor!! lotsa rust i miss the old bang wagon
First I want to add Aluminum wheels should be checked after 50 miles of driving time to be retorqued. In ten years of wrenching I have seen 3 wheels come loose, One for me, and I assure you they got tighten right. What happens is aluminum is softer than steel. They heat and cool at different rates and unless they settle back together perfect it can work itself loose. MIne came loose after 10 days and over 1000 miles of driving. If a tech forgets to tighten a wheel it will fall off before 50 miles I guarantee it. Second. I noticed with my south side lift bars I have to tighten them up on a regular basis. I have also notice those cheap u clamps dont help either. Use a good Stainless set.....much more rigid. Shit happpen..........
Gather 'round the campfire, everyone. I too have a similar story. Years ago, I was cruising home (~90mph) from a night out in my 'new' 1963 Chevy Step-side. The rumble of the 327, 6-pak, with water quenched Cherry Bombs was in key with the newly installed Western Auto 8-track player. "Grand Funk Railroad" never sounded so good. I'm about a mile away from being 'safe at home' when all the sudden, the right rear of the truck gets a sudden case of gravity. The truck had no choice but to head for the right-hand ditch. The truck is now sliding along side the road, front wheels on the pavement, rear wheels on the shoulder. Not having any seat-belts, and tipping the scales at a whopping 90 pounds, the momentum threw me to the passenger's side of the truck. I should've thought about this very possibility when I chose to put those 'hide-of-nauga' seat-covers on the bench seat. Word was, their materials coefficient of friction led to the advent of Teflon. All I could do as a passenger on the run-away train was hold on to the sheet-metal dash and endure the ride. As I'm wondering when this bullet was going to stop, and now looking through the passenger side window, I notice my neighbor's mailbox in the path of all my worth. WHAM! "Well, there goes the Polk's mailbox that Daddy's gonna make me replace with a new one that I'm gonna have to pay for and put in the ground." Next obstacle to come into sight; a rebar-enforced concrete culvert. I sunk my finger-nails into that metal dash and prepared myself for a sudden impact. As the truck got closer to the culvert I'd driven by a thousand times, I remembered it as just recently being replaced - with one of those new square-concrete types. It never occurred to me to appreciate that old thin, corrugated steel culvert. It's nice, round shape was so conducive to minimizing the impact should I ever one day lose control of my truck, slide along the highway and hit it while listening to Grand Funk Railroad. Forget the old, wreck-friendly culvert. It wasn't going to make much difference at this speed anyhow. Either way, I was pretty sure this impact was gonna be harder than a mule's kick to the seed sack. I remember laying down on the bench seat - knowing good things were NOT about to happen. BAM! The back right side of the truck collides with the concrete wall of the new culvert - perfectly perpendicular so as to impose the maximum impact attainable. The collision was hard enough that it bounced me off that slick new seat cover onto the cold, thin rubber mat of the floorboard. There were 8-track tapes flying through the cabin like blunt projectiles, and I was their target. I swear it looked they were suspended in space as they would change direction of flight before eventually slapping me up 'side the head. After what seemed to be 30 minutes of sphincter-tightening anxiety, I get up off the floorboard, peek out over the (metal) dashboard, look around and wonder where the hell I am. It was like I was in a different place in time. "That looks like the Polk's house, but it’s on the wrong side of the road! We're not in Kansas anymore, Totto." The truck wound up pointing in the opposite direction from whence I came, in the ditch opposite the one I ridden the time-travel machine into. After I gathered my composure, determined there was no blood or lost limbs, I got outta the truck. I couldn't tell what could've caused Ol' Yeller to treat me this way. The next day, my brother and I tow it home and perform the autopsy. Turns out, the right-side "U" bolts that retain the leaf springs to the rear end gave way, causing the bed of the truck to head for Mother earth. It didn't take us (okay, mostly my brother) long to patch up Ol' Yeller - which, in turn, gave my brother the opportunity to, one week later, lose control of Yeller - for no apparent reason - hit an embankment head-on at 70mph, totaling the truck and giving him a stress-headache until the day we towed that demon-possessed truck to the junkyard. The moral of the story? I have no idea. To this day I dunno why those bolts came loose and interrupted my Grand Funk zone. The end. -Rick
Damn, that's quite the story Rick. I particularly like the details... for example : "Sphincter-tightening anxiety." Beautifully said! -Corbin
Story? That's a novel! But a good one. Once some one evidently tried to steel the chrome wheels off my Mav. They got the lug nuts loose but couldn't get off the wheel lock. I didn't notice any thing while driving untill a friend who was in the lane next to me complained about my lug nuts hitting his AMX. When we stop and looked the wheel locks were the only things holding on two of my wheels. Sorry, no "Sphincter-tightening anxiety."
LOL, people also tell me I need to get out and do more things, and I say "ok, but I need to check the MaverickMessage Board first." Oh well, it's an addiction that is healthy, I suppose..... -Corbin
