Lug nuts and wheel bearings are torqued to the same spec?

Wayne

Wayne

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Staff member
A true story. An RV manufacturer that I'm familiar with did some service work on another trailer, which included the wheel bearings. There was a new tech, apparently he was extremely green. He was instructed to repack the wheel bearings on a trailer. He did as told and when it came time to tighten the newly repacked wheel bearing, he was the sticker that said, "Tighten lug nuts to 140 lb/ft torque". He took that to mean the wheel bearing nut and the lug nuts.

The owner got over 500 miles away before one of the wheels seized. All four hubs were welded to the axles and the entire assemblies had to be replaced.

The moral to the story? Mentoring is very important!
 
140 is a little tight. It always make me a bit nervous to go through the standard bearing nut procedure and back it off to put the cotter pin in.
 
Azjeff said:
140 is a little tight. It always make me a bit nervous to go through the standard bearing nut procedure and back it off to put the cotter pin in.
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yeah, especially when adjustment is limited to one flat(60 degrees) in either direction.You also get an appreciation for how forgiving tapered bearings really are.

one thing for sure is if a tapered roller bearing destroys itself in operation there is no way to know for certain if the preload was correct or not
 
MSCH said:
yeah, especially when adjustment is limited to one flat(60 degrees) in either direction.
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And the universally accepted direction is looser. At every gas stop while traveling I check the brake drums and tires for excess heat with my infrared thermometer just because my personality is cautiously pessimistic. And I drive wife crazy checking the TPMS all the time.
 
Azjeff said:
And the universally accepted direction is looser. At every gas stop while traveling I check the brake drums and tires for excess heat with my infrared thermometer just because my personality is cautiously pessimistic. And I drive wife crazy checking the TPMS all the time.
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nothing wrong with that. I check mine every time I walk past if I am on the road, either with my hands or with an infrared..
better to see a problem when parked somewhere and deal with it then than on the side of the highway.
 
MSCH said:
nothing wrong with that. I check mine every time I walk past if I am on the road, either with my hands or with an infrared..
better to see a problem when parked somewhere and deal with it then than on the side of the highway.
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Same here, I'll walk around and touch them all with my calibrated 5 finger meat thermometer.
 
Azjeff said:
At every gas stop while traveling I check the brake drums and tires for excess heat with my infrared thermometer just because my personality is cautiously pessimistic.
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I do the same, but just touch the tires and hubs with my hand. A general walk around look-see to make sure everything is ok.

Azjeff said:
And I drive wife crazy checking the TPMS all the time.
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Does your have an alarm? We do look occasionally, but it has an alarm for high/low pressure and rate of decrease.
 
I sold the TPMS that came on the trailer. LOL. I've never had a trailer with TPMS, and first time I used it I realized a couple tires needed to be topped up, and when I realized I needed tools to remove the sensors from the tire valve stems so I could add air ( yeah, the sensors were held in place with small torx so they won't come off the valve) I said to myself this thing has to go.. might be someone out there who wants one, but it seems like an impediment to me.
 
MSCH said:
I realized I needed tools to remove the sensors from the tire valve stems so I could add air ( yeah, the sensors were held in place with small torx so they won't come off the valve) I said to myself this thing has to go
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My tire sensors come with an anti-theft ring that can be removed. Yours might as well. It took the ring off, so when I want to take the sensors off, it's just like unscrewing a valve stem cover. Quick and easy.

I was pulling the Airstream one time and the TPMS warned me of a leaking tire. The TPMS was correct and had I not stopped, I could have damaged the side of the trailer with a blown tire. Reskinning the side of a 30' Airstream is about $45k. I like my TPMS.
 
Had a friend lose a new Chinese (?) tire on a big 5th wheel toy hauler and he didn't know it until it destroyed the bottom of a slide and part of the fiberglass sidewall. Huge repair job, trailer down for months. No thanks.
 
I've been pulling a trailer for about 40 years.. and I have had one blowout... and that happened in the gas station.
I knew the tire was bad and was limping it home.. because I didn't want to change it on the side of the road.. and I was stopping every 15 miles and taking a look at it... one of the belts had separated and the tire was egg shaped.
I stopped for gas near the house and it blew at the gas pump..
so I ended up changing the tire in the gas station instead of the side of the road.
also worth saying the tires were more than 10 years old and I knew they were living on borrowed time.

I've had one other tire that was low, but I saw it on a walk around while I was travelling.. and that tire had just been installed the day before , was brand new and apparently the bead was leaking.. but I caught it.

I prefer to rely on my senses than to get loaded down with electronic nonsense. TPMS is sort of a band aid for boneheads, which is why the government mandates it on new vehicles... I had them remove the sensors in my Ram, as one of them had an issue and I figured I was more observant than the TPMS..

perfect example was the truck blew a valve stem and the TPMS did not come on, I knew something was up because the steering got harder.. and by the time I stopped the tire was flat and then the idiot light came on... that is my take on them.. :)
 
Azjeff said:
Didn't realize I was a bonehead...
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you aren't. I bet you know how to use a tire pressure gage.. and as you already stated you walk around the RV and check the stuff... that TPMS isn't for you.... its for the boneheads of the world. Like I said, I had a blowout on the RV... friggin tire was full of air, it had a bad belt... the TPMS would not have caught that... my eyeballs did. :)
 
I bought an aftermarket TPMS for ours. It isn't the greatest in the world, but it measures pressure and temp (Although I'm not sure where it senses that since it just sits on the valve stem.

I really just want it for a heads-up if something bad is happening. Isn't going to help with a blowout, but the last tire I had go down on a car gave me about 15 seconds of warning it was going, which would be enough time to get in the right-hand lane and pull off.
 
ctechbob said:
I bought an aftermarket TPMS for ours. It isn't the greatest in the world, but it measures pressure and temp (Although I'm not sure where it senses that since it just sits on the valve stem.

I really just want it for a heads-up if something bad is happening. Isn't going to help with a blowout, but the last tire I had go down on a car gave me about 15 seconds of warning it was going, which would be enough time to get in the right-hand lane and pull off.
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I hit this on the Alaska Highway. I heard a bang and what sounded like a pistol.. tire was flat that before you finish reading this. . :)
TPMS best feature is you can check your pressure from your drivers seat..
I don't have any faith in those devices for anything other than that but if it gives somebody peace ofmind, by all means.

PXL_20230722_222915551.jpg
 
I had two tires blow out on a 26' enclosed trailer in July, about 100 miles apart. It was a rental and we brought our own spares, two of them. Good planning huh?
 
Wayne said:
I had two tires blow out on a 26' enclosed trailer in July, about 100 miles apart. It was a rental and we brought our own spares, two of them. Good planning huh?
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if it was a rental, yeah... if it was yours I'd say shame on you. :)
 
MSCH said:
if it was a rental, yeah... if it was yours I'd say shame on you. :)
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That's absolutely correct.

Now for the funny part. We knew they were going to blow out and placed bets on when. Junk tires that had so many torn cords that the tread bulged like a balloon all the way around. The tires lasted longer than we thought, 800 and 900 miles. We thought they would last about 300.

I was driving with my cousin that is like a brother to me. We both have a lot of experience towing and working together. We had the blown tires changed and were back on the road in about 8 minutes each. Almost as fast as a NASCAR pit. :)
 
Wayne said:
That's absolutely correct.

Now for the funny part. We knew they were going to blow out and placed bets on when. Junk tires that had so many torn cords that the tread bulged like a balloon all the way around. The tires lasted longer than we thought, 800 and 900 miles. We thought they would last about 300.

I was driving with my cousin that is like a brother to me. We both have a lot of experience towing and working together. We had the blown tires changed and were back on the road in about 8 minutes each. Almost as fast as a NASCAR pit. :)
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do you know where Germfask Michigan is?

I'm going to give you a story about trailer tires back when I lived up north and we were going deer hunting, I was about 19 years old.. friend not much older than me who had an old pop up camper..intent was to travel to the Seney National Wildlife Refuge. you know the teenage boy drill, show up at guys house, we hook up this beat up old camper to his Cutlass, play with the wires to see if we can get the lights to work.... so I'm helping him so we can get going on our 300 mile drive and I ask him if he has a spare for the trailer... of course the answer is NO... I tell him the tires look like crap to which he exclaims it will be fine.

anyway I bet you know where we got our flat tire.. if you looked up where Germfask is... :)

do you know how easy it is to find an oddball size trailer tire in the UP of Michigan??
 
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