Stranded on the side of the road

Got a call from a work mate today 'Black Jack' asking if I could pick up his son Ben and take him for a drive as a 18th B'day present, I thought why not, Saturday morning, 4 days off no worries and then .............................................. ..................................I knew I should of have stayed in bed
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Wow sorry to hear that! I was paranoid before about this happening from another thread (think it was Bruce or FBB talking about it) so just before a 50 mile drive tonight I checked all my lug bolt torques. This is now on my 'once per week' checklist.

'course maybe look at the bright side, you're wheel didn't fly off like that guy who had just picked up a Testarossa (IIRC)

 

And I thought my slow down 1/4 light coming on was a big deal!
Good luck that you caught it pap!

 

Wow! Glad you caught it before something serious could have happened. Did you feel the wheel coming loose.

Did the thread in the errant lug nut get worn out while the wheel was rocking back and forth during your run today or did it happen earlier and this was the consequence.

 

Lucky!! I felt the car shake at 1st, then knew something was up. I came to a stop around the corner, out of the way of traffic. I wasnt speeding luckily and the wheel was held on by 2 bent wheel bolts. One fell out and 2 were just sitting there. VERY disappointed!! I tightend these wheel bolts a little tighter than factory spec. I went to 90 lbs on these, when I fitted my new wheel spacers, tyres ect....I checked them once since then, around 3 weeks ago and they were still tight. LHR f*ckers came loose......

Yeah, lucky mate!! I told the young fella that lucky we were not speeding, because it would have been very NASTY!! 348 on the scraping on the ground all over the road. Would have probably had an accident ect...killed someone......you never know. I now need 5 more wheel bolts. I will check them before every drive from now on, when I get it back on the road again. I will try and run a tap through the damaged 2 threads in the wheel spacer so I can a get wheel bolt back in there.

 

I only felt the wheel/car shake 30 seconds before I stopped. I thought it was a flat tyre at 1st. The wheel bolts were tight and perfect before this happened, when I put it all back together a month ago. The 2 bolts that stayed bolted up in the pic are bent, the 2 that came loose and are sitting there are ok. The only stripped one was that one I took the pic of. Sucks dogs balls! I remove one wheel bolt from RHR to use in the LHR to get car home. Lucky my bro only lives 5 mins away and came to the rescue with jack, wheel socket ect....

 

Pap -

Shoot me a telco so I can phone you. That is obviously, extremely worrisome. I have not seen that before on the spacers whatsoever. The spacer bolts (the little ones) are still firm on the hat, correct?

Is the thread on the hat compromised? I can get bolts into a FedEx pack immediately. I'll wait for your email.

-d

p.s One more question... are those your original 'stock' 55mm bolts?

 

Heya mate. Bolts that hold the spacer on are tight. I tightend them to 80lbs. They are still tight. All the threads in the spacer are ok, except that one. It only have 2 threads that are damaged, so I will run a tap through that one and see how we go. They are the stock wheel bolts that I reused all round. I didnt fit the front wheel spacers. ALL the bolts were tight on the others wheels. I checked before I drove car home.

 

PM sent.........be back laters.

 

Badly designed spacer. Bolts are not supported by the spacer. It looks like the aluminum spacer is bolted to Ferrari oem holes. Then the spacer has steel inserts swedged to the aluminum? If so this means the aluminum is taking all the load and can fail. They cause the bolt to float unsupported and all the force is at the thread to grip interface. This is really bad. I would not use that spacer style. There is no way those bolts will stay tight. You also need to use the proper bolts with a grip length just shy of the fully torqued length. The length of the number of threads required to grab should be 150% of the bolt diameter. PAP you were lucky today. I would re-engineer to studs using the OEM holes and put a spacer with hole close to the oem stud diameter on then get chrome Ferrari look nuts to bolt the wheel to the longer studs. This is the safe way. Otherwise you are safer using longer bolts of Ferrari design with spacer not bolted to the hub and having the bolts go through the spacer and inot the oem holes. Still it is important that the spacer holes be close to the grip diameter of the bolts to properly support the bolts or stud.

 

PAP, glad you're OK... that's what matters first. This is the least of what other horrible options that could have happened!!

 

Sorry to hear this happened to you I don't like what I see.
Good thing I ordered my W H E E E E L S Today

Look at the bright side, you are coming to

A M E R I C A !

 

Pap, is someone trying to kill you by losening your lug bolts?

 

It is those damn Australian roads!!! Glad no one was injured!!

 

PAP..!!!sorry to see that man....ouch..!!!!this thing happen is it because of the spacer..?

 

You know, I find it extremely fishy that 3 bolts loosened up at the same time!?!?!? What are the odds??

 

Glad nothing serious happened.

 

O.K. PAP who did you piss off? Some Mustang guy?
Glag you're ok man!

 

Wow...that was a close one. (Edit: At first I thought what was PAP thinking running that much toe in and positive camber...hahaha)

Glad you're ok and no one was hurt.

Well, it's a sign from above to switch to a 355 now.

 

+1

America will solve all your problems

I am afraid so, this design of spacer is not allowed on most all race courses that I am aware of.... Personally I would not use anything except the through bolt design..... but that is just me..

+1 that 348 is shot now Pap, a 355 is your only choice!!!

 

YEEEEOOOWWW!

Man did you get LUCKY Pap! It's a good thing you pulled over. It could have been really ugly bro. I'm with billybob on this one. I would ditch that style spacer and go with the other style. Or better yet, get a different set of rims, say some 355's or 512tr's. That would have just bee pure ugliness if that wheel would have come of at speed.

But as they say, sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. Good to see you go lucky on this one.

 

Honestly FBB, I reckon I should just f*ck these wheel spacers off altogether!!

 

Thanks for the support lads!!

 

Why did you tighten the wheel bolts higher than factory specs.? You probably know already but screws/bolts hold by their threads being temporarily deformed (until you unscrew them again). If you overtighten too much you will permanently deform the threads. Just as bad/dangerous as undertightening.... maybe worse.

Your torque wrench may be reading low also. You could very well have applied 100, 110, 120 foot-pounds without knowing it.

 

When I tightend them to factory spec 74lbs, I personally didnt think that was enough. Didnt feel that tight IMO. So......I went to 90lbs, which really is f*ck all, trust me. Another quarter turn more if anything. I have a Snap On torque wrench which is at least 6 years old. I have never got it checked/calibrated, but it hasnt seen much use, so I think it is ok. Tomorrow I will borrow another friends torque wrench and see if the other bolts are still 90lbs. I reckon they are ok. I dont know what happened to LHR.......