Torque wrench and bead lube

Murphy tire lube or us cheapskate use liquid soap

 

I watched Wingfoot use 3 in 1 oil . . .

Oops sorry - for lug nuts.

Tire dismount, good old dishwashing liquid is all I've seen used round here.

 

I got a CDI torque wrench a few years ago. It's a snap-on company but not as pricey as snap-on. It's 3/4" drive, click wrench, and from memory torques up to 600 ft lbs, or maybe more.

It was around $600 I think. Shop around you can find lots of torque wrenches in that price range. I wasn't willing to spend $1,000+ on one but not interested in Harbor Freight throw away either. Just remember it's a precision tool. Not a breaker bar or ratchet. Not to be tossed around. If you're going to do your tire work all the time get some decent tools to work with.

NAPA sells a tire lube called RuGlyde or something like that. Works great. Good for restoring rubber too. It's really cheap and much better than soapy water. Soapy water will leave moisture inside your rim. Tire lube will dry away.

 

I have used dishwashing liquid & it will work, but a good tire lube like Rollin coal mentioned works a lot better.

 

40" breaker bar + my 200 pound self = roughly 600 ft lbs. That's all I've ever used to torque the lugs nuts.

As for bead lube, best stuff I've found is this:

Available in various sizes, and convenient to carry in the truck with you for roadside repairs.

 

I use plain dish soap to demount I've got a tub of muphys for mounting tires. I have never used a torque wrench on heavy truck wheels don't see the point in it when I watch the tire shop sit there and hammer on them with a 1 inch gun and then get a torque wrench out when the nut doesn't spin and the 1 inch torque wrench just breaks they're already over the 450-500 ft.lbs the nut calls for.

I don't hammer on mine either when I tighten them back down just enough to seat the lock ring no 3 seconds of hammering never lost a wheel going down the highway and never cracked a rim but I also check my lugnuts daily and walk around the truck often.

 

I use Blackjack tire lube and have had good luck with it. I tried the RuGlyde from NAPA and I wasn't impressed with it.

For lugnuts I just use my 1" impact and go until the nuts won't turn. Probably too much but I've never had any problems.

 

Supposedly it'll snap the studs doing that. Until you start breaking studs on a weekly basis I don't see a problem with it. Many tire shops have been doing it that way for years.

 

I'm picky about torquing lugnuts. I set them at 450 ft lbs. I'll run all the lug nuts up by hand seating the wheel then hit them with the impact for maybe a second. Then it takes about a 1/4 of a turn with the torque wrench to hit 450. Takes me 3 times longer than just impacting everything and forgetting it but I dunno. Wheels can come off. Studs can get stretched. Anything that critical is worth taking the time to do it by the book. Heck there was a guy who posted 20 pages of comments in here about torquing lug nuts. That was pretty extreme but I believe he has the right idea about it not being something to be lazy about.