Torque for Wire Wheel Nuts

[BLB27]

What torque should I use for my wire wheels? I am using washers under the nuts to protect the powder coat.

[Professor Fate]

I was at 45 and tried for 50 and started stripping nuts. They were the new repro nuts with the bad chrome job.

[Professor Fate]

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[Allan]

Are you aiming to get the nuts tight, or just tight enough not to cut the powder coat? Unfortunately, wheel nuts need to be tight, tight enough to cut through any paint finish. The washers may stop the nut working on the finish, but if the nut is tight enough, the washer will still cut the finish. Think of paint/powder coat as a thin plastic lubricant washer.

Allan from down under.

[Professor Fate]

Well stated Allan.

No escaping some paint or powdercoat chipping. Q tip and some gloss black paint for touch up.

[Adam]

If wire wheel nuts are supposed to be that tight, then why is the FORD tool for them a T-handled socket???

The “washers” were originally meant as a “fix” for wheels with wallowed out holes (mostly on Model A wheels)…

[John kuehn]

Worrying about scratching the paint and especially on the wheel nut area is not that important for me. The nuts are supposed to hold the wheel on. They don’t need to be torqued down and especially not with a impact.
We’ve come to think to much in terms of perfection until it’s an overkill.

Just use a breakover and socket or some type of T handle wrench and tighten the nuts good and tight as we use to say.

[TXGOAT2]

I'd use the washers and tighten them in 2 stages to 45 ft lbs final torque in the correct pattern. When you get the car on the road, re-check them several times, starting at 10 miles or so, then every 50 miles or so until they stay seated. There are many places on a T where maintaining perfect paint on a car that is driven is difficult. Wheels are one such place, and the hood hinges and hood clips are another. Areas areas around door edges may need some type of material applied to prevent chaffing of paint. Some tire tread patterns will pick up small pebbles and hurl them at the paintwork, especially when tires are brand new.The area around the turtle deck lid is another potential trouble spot. I don't think Ford used any kind of fender welting in assembly. Use of some type of welting or anti-squeak material would probably be a good idea when mounting fenders, splash aprons, hood shelves, etc. Caution and patience will be required.

[Scott_Conger]

When you look at the tool(s) made for tightening wire wheels on a "T", you will see that it is all but IMPOSSIBLE to apply 45-50 ft/lbs to those nuts. The wheels flex a very small amount when the nuts are tightened and become essentially self-locking nuts. A 9" wrench and a little "oomph" is all that is required and is frankly more mechanical advantage than braces of the day could ever apply. A quick search for "Walden-Worcester 1520 5/8 Brace Socket Wrench" will bring up a tool that was used to run nuts on/off of these wheels and you will notice that the mechanical leverage is relatively limited.

[sweet23]

Removal of the paint with a grinding stone cut to the taper of the lug holes will greatly aid in them staying tight. The lug nut will cover the bare metal in the taper.

[jiminbartow]

I looked online and it said to torque modern lug nuts at 80 to 100 lbs. That is how much a pneumatic lug wrench would tighten them. This said, I would tighten them “good n tight” like suggested before, but not necessarily THAT tight. The below drawing shows that there should be a cone shaped washer (#2887S) with each lug nut to prevent damage to the powder coat. A little grease under each lug nut washer might prevent them from damaging the powder coating. Jim Patrick

[Norman Kling]

Important to tighten them diagonally first before torqueing them. Like you would do with head or manifold. Then I go back and tighten them with the x wrench. This wrench is typical of the ones for modern wheels. Just find one side which fits the T. I tighten them with my arms to the point they stop turning. I would guess about 30 ft lbs. I have never used a torque wrench so don't know exactly how much, but have not had a cracked wheel hub nor a wobbly wheel. No need for great torque. You don't want to strip the threads nor break off the studs.
Norm

[George Mills]

Somebody really should write an article for the magazine on the subject of torque as the same principle applies to ALL tools designed in the era. Unfortunately, my style would take the entire magazine as I always need 15 words to make a point others have single words for. I have asked on occasion that one of the vendors at a show hang a fish scale and have a clipboard to record ‘pulls’ by various people as they chatted or passed by. Never came to be…but still an interesting concept that would be fun and contributory.

The 1520 Walden-Worchester has a NORMAL ‘throw’ of just under 6 inches (5.8 to be exact---interesting, eh?). The average human can pull on the order of 70-80# on a fish-scale for a short time. After that it is just physics!

But wait, that W-W wrench mentioned contains a hairpin offset in the make-up with the claim at the time that while ‘speed’ was reduced, yet torque went up!’ A classic engineer would say ‘poo-poo’ to that statement, as his mindset is the handle location, until he would read the instructions specific to the Walden-Worchester 1520!

For removal of a seated nut, the hand was to grasp the hairpin loop (not the handle) and turn in the direction desired for loosening. Once broken free, move the hand to actual handle and ‘spin’ fast until nut is off. To use for attaching a nut, ‘spin’ with the handle until initially cinched..then grab the hairpin to ‘seat’ the nut with a slow sustained tug.

I unfortunately do not have a W-W 1520 to measure, but my guess is the center of the hairpin would be on the order of a 9-10” “throw”?

For the sake of discussion, let’s call it 10 as the math then gets real easy. A slow TUG on a 10” throw with a 70 -80 pound force is 700-800 INCH-POUNDS. That’s 57-66 FT-LBS of torque. I suspect the lower number is more accurate, or split the diff and look to 60? I have searched hi and low for a published number in the era on possible ‘pull’ for design and always come up blank...thats why I encouraged the fish-scale 'conversation starter'.

[TXGOAT2]

I use a regular 1/2" ratchet handle, 4" extension, and a quality deep socket. The ratchet handle is close to 9.5" from the center of the drive square to the end of the handle I grip the outer third of the handle.