Ask 10 people this question you will get 10 different answers. Here is what has worked for me the past 30 years. With the car jacked up and the weight of the car off the tire, tighten nut snug with the rim and tire installed on the hub. Grab the top and bottom of the tire and you will feel a small wiggle back and forth(clearance in the bearing). Tighten the nut in small incraments until that wiggle in the wheel just disappears. Put in your cotter pin, and you are set.
I tighten with pliers with wheel turning, then back off until slightly loose, then tighten finger-tight while still turning, then back out to nearest notch.
Never, Never, Never,use pliers on a nut, as a professional mech. it really ticks me to see butchered fittings and nuts on a vehicle. <img src="graemlins/nono.gif" border="0" alt="[nono]" />
"Never, Never, Never,use pliers on a nut, as a professional mech. it really ticks me to see butchered fittings and nuts on a vehicle."
Although I generally agree with that comment, with wheel bearings, I don't. People have a tendancy to overtighten them when using a wrench. I have used channel locks for that job for over 30 years because of the feel they give. I have seen more than one set of bearings ruined by being tightened with the only wrench that the people had that was large enough, a pipe wrench!
Originally posted by troy-curt:
<strong>Never, Never, Never,use pliers on a nut, as a professional mech. it really ticks me to see butchered fittings and nuts on a vehicle. <img src="graemlins/nono.gif" border="0" alt="[nono]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah what's up with that????? I have been doing this for over twenty years myself and hve never seen a single mechanic in any shop I've ever worked in use anything but channel locks on wheel bearing nuts (not talking pressed-in hub bearings here). How can you damage a nut that's only tightened barely over finger-tight anyway?
Of late I have been using a torque wrench much more than in my previous life as a car-builder worker-oner hotrodder. Everything goes together simpler and easier with no guesswork, and, guess what? It lasts and lasts and lasts. Your wheel nuts are so much easier to remove and not deform when they're torqued properly. Where were these specifications when I was "growing up"? Right there in the sjop manuals and service bulletins where I find them today! That's where!
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